


Orbiculatus

by Man_Who_Sold_The_World



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Gen, OFC - Freeform, This is an AU, no multi chapters we die like men, this took forever to do but it was WORTH it, watch that tiny grey dot scroll you puny mortals, wow that's a lot of characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-19
Updated: 2018-06-19
Packaged: 2019-05-25 14:52:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14979512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Man_Who_Sold_The_World/pseuds/Man_Who_Sold_The_World
Summary: - adjective: circular, roundAn AU wherein, for the future to continue, the past must be changed, and Rose Tico with it.





	Orbiculatus

She knows the moment it happens, can feel tension in the air during the lead-up to it.  No one has to tell her: she can feel herself torn in two. She clutches at her pendant and weeps.  The room feels cold, the oppressive kind of cold that happens when there’s a leak in the hull and the dead vacuum of space begins to creep in, slowly suffocating everything it touches. 

_ This  _ wasn’t supposed to happen.  She and Paige were a  _ team _ , she was the only family she had left.  Rose was never too far from her sister, and when she was, she felt a string bound across galaxies back to her, a tug directly from her heart that could lead her home from anywhere.  She stares at the grave necklace, once a piece of hope, and feels anger seep into her grief like the oppressive cold of the room.

“ _ This isn’t how it’s supposed to go! _ ” she cries, the rage of injustice seeping into her tone as well.  The hull of the ship seems to weep inward with her, the air tensing even moreso.  She clutches her pendant with all of her might, the Haysian smelt digging into the callused flesh of her hand.

_ The Force  _ seems to agree with her. 

 

She’s still crying when she feels herself wrenched from her time and place in the cosmos and dumped in the dark sands of some despotically hot desert planet.  She looks up to the sky, stars shining just brightly enough for her to see what’s in front of her and not much more. She glances around still, pulling her necklace over her head and wiping at her eyes and nose with a sniffle.

“Who are you?” a small voice asks.

She jumps in surprise at that, turning to meet the sandy-haired boy.  She smiles; it isn’t this kid’s fault that she’s been thrown about by a Force beyond her control.  “I’m Rose,” she replies honestly, looking him over, the anger that arose in her earlier now simmering in the front of her mind as she realizes what this child is.  “Who are you?” she asks back, kneeling before him and watching his eyes carefully. 

“I’m Anakin—” he begins, the name shaking something from her.  Some distant, malevolent voice whispers, “ _ Vader _ ,” and she realizes, somehow, what’s happened and it doesn’t seem right.   _ Darth Vader; he can’t have been _ — _ he wasn’t just some _ — _ wasn’t he always?  _  Her train of thought is cut off as the child repeats himself.  “Did you hear me?” he asks, voice that of a whiny child, and she suddenly feels like crying again. 

“I’m sorry, what?” she asks as nicely as possible.

“I asked you where you came from,” he huffs, pouting. 

“I’m from Hays Minor,” she begins, hand subconsciously pressing against her pendant.  “But that’s not all, I’m part of The Resistance too,” she explains, taking off her ring and sliding the shutters open, the insignia revealing itself.

“Resistance?  Against what?” he asks.

“You’ll know soon enough,” she replies, trying her best to smile.  “But we take care of people like you, we protect the galaxy. When the First...when my planet was destroyed, all I had left was my sister and they helped me. I became a mechanic for them.  You can be whatever you want.”

“I want to be a pilot,” he admits, and Rose can’t help but tear up.

“My sister did, too...she got to be one,” Rose assures, even as she feels a few tears begin to bubble at the corner of her eye.

“Was she any good?” he asks, and Rose can’t help but laugh at that.

“Best in the fleet,” she manages to chuckle out, turning her head away just in time to hide the falling tears.  She hears a woman call the child’s name, and he quickly glances back to her before skittering off. She waits a moment, drying her eyes before the thought occurs to her to make chase.  By the time she rises to do so, she feels herself torn from reality again.

 

This time, she isn’t sure if she even is anywhere at all.  She looks about, turning in circles as the darkness echoes her footsteps back at her.  She hears a woman scream the boy’s name, hears a man do the same, hears twins cry, and some artificial voice scream in agony.   _No_ , she thinks, running as she sees a temple of children slaughtered, running as she sees a man stand over his nephew with momentarily unforgiving eyes, running as she sees a boy helplessly drag his father to safety, running as she sees a cargo pilot die by the same flames as his ship, running as sees a little girl abandoned, running as she sees a dying grey-haired man cup his daughter’s face in the rain, running as she sees a little boy deep in a cruel forest with blood covering his vest, running as she watches the galaxy enveloped in flames and despair as it runs through an endless cycle of cruelty. She sees it all, the self-fulfilling prophecies, the manipulations, the tragedy, everything. 

“No! _No_ , it _can’t_ all end like this!” she shouts into the endless void of brutality, desperate to find something she can pound her fists into.  “This can’t be what it all comes to! Let me change it, _let me fix it!_ ” she screams, squeezing her eyes shut, only opening her eyes when the echoes of her voice cease.

“Very few things can be fixed by one person,” a wise voice begins as she glances over, scanning over his glassy eyes.  “But that does not mean we do not try,” he continues, smiling widely as he grips at his staff, approaching with steady feet.

“How much of that did you hear?” she asks, compulsively wiping at her eyes again despite the fact that she was sure he couldn’t see the tear tracks.

“You were yelling quite loudly, even someone without my hearing would have heard you.”  He laughs then, a bulkier man approaching, looking to the other with bemused affection. 

“Where am I?” she asks in earnest.

“Jedha,” he replies, grinning widely as the other places a hand on his shoulder. 

“Who are you?” she then asks, looking to the both of them in genuine confusion. 

“I think the better question is, who are  _ you _ , Rebel?” the bulkier man asks as the first man leans against his shoulder.

“Rebel?  How did you—”

“The uniform is not subtle,” he says drily, head tilting down to her hand. “Neither is the ring.”

“Let’s get you inside and into something less obvious, I’m sure Baze has something,” the first man insists, his companion—Baze—nearly rolling his eyes.

“You still haven’t answered my question,” she mutters, mostly to herself. 

“He’s Chirrut,” Baze replies, looking to Rose as though this whole process is something he has to go through every night.

“Guardian of the Whills,” Chirrut adds as they usher her inside.

“Guardian of nothing now,” Baze adds in a mutter.  “We’ll have to get rid of your jumpsuit. If you’re caught with it, they’ll kill you.”

“Who will kill me?” she asks, knowing somehow that they can’t be speaking of the First Order.

“The Empire,” he answers, as though it should be as evident as the stars at night.  The inside of their dwelling is dim.

“I’m taking it with me,” she decides as she looks around their room. “I can’t afford to lose anything I have.” 

“You have already lost many things, haven’t you?” Chirrut asks, cloudy eyes somehow boring into her.  “You should be careful with that charm, it has a strong presence,” he warns, Rose looking to it with worry.

“ _ Presence _ ,” Baze half-scoffs.  “I would keep it under your shirt, though; it does seem somewhat suspicious, especially to an Imperial.”

“Because it has a presence,” Chirrut insists, digging through a chest and pulling out a tunic and pants that are most definitely too big for her.  He tosses it in her direction, and she only has to reach a little to the left to catch it. “What is a rebel doing so far from a base?” he asks.

“Changing history,” she replies instantly, the words feeling as though they didn’t come from her.

“For the better?” Baze asks, moving to stand beside his companion.

“I hope so,” she admits, nervously looking down to the bundle of clothes.

“We’ll let you get changed,” Baze assures, Chirrut coming to his side.

“Are you going to come walk with me like when we were young?” Chirrut asks.

“You ask that like I don’t walk with you now that we’re old,” Baze counters gruffly, nonetheless taking Chirrut’s arm.

Once alone, Rose climbs out of her jumpsuit, bunching it up with the rebel insignia facing inward and pulling the too-long tunic over her head.  She pulls the loose pants on, tucking in the tunic and tying the strings of the waist as tight as she could. She rolls up the legs of the pants until they don’t trip her anymore, and huffs in annoyance as the tunic still hangs loosely.  She’s always had trouble finding clothes that fit her properly, a problem Paige never really had. She takes a moment to consider that, feeling as though the memory should make her want to cry, but the reminder of the annoyance oddly strengthening her.  She doesn’t know how long she was lost in her thoughts, but she’s eventually brought back to reality by the guardian’s voice.

“So, you said you were changing history?” he prompts, sitting in an old wooden chair, hand still resting on his staff as his companion stands beside him.  “Hard for someone so young.”

“I…”  She feels as though she can tell him.  “Actually, I’m even younger than I look,” she says, the statement being objectively true, but still feeling odd.  “But...I know things.”

“You know things?” Baze asks with a chuckle.  “You won’t get far with the Empire lurking about by only knowing  _ things. _ ”

“She wiser than she appears,” Chirrut counters.

“I am, thank you,” she replies, looking to the pair for a moment.  “Would you happen to know where any Rebel bases might be, though…?” she asks, Baze rolling his eyes. 

“I’ll get you there,” Chirrut assures.

“ _ We’ll  _ get her there, if anything,” Baze counters.  “But we can’t do anything tonight, not with the curfew.”  He then nods to a mat on the ground. “Rest up. You’ll need to be as aware as possible.”

“Thank you,” she replies, clutching her jumpsuit to her chest. “You wouldn’t happen to have a bag, would you?” she asks.

  
  
  
  


“So how are we doing this?” she asks, rubbing at her aching neck. 

“Knowing him, the Rebels will find us,” Baze replies, handing her a bowl of indeterminate broth.

“So, what, we just wait for them to show up and ask to hop onto their ship?” 

“Something along those lines.  What did you do for them before you get lost?” he asks.

“I’m a mechanic,” she answers honestly, trying not the let her worry show, hand gripping at her pendant.

“We’ll be fine,” Chirrut then says, holding his bowl and drinking from it directly.

“Why are you helping me?” Rose then asks, the question escaping her before she can think better of it.

“Few things can be fixed by one person,” Chirrut begins, flashing a smile in her direction.  “But they’re fixed much quicker with several. Drink up, we should go soon.” He pats her shoulder as he passes, grabbing at Baze’s hand as he drinks down the rest of his broth and sets the bowl on a crate.  Rose watches the two for a moment, reveling in the warmth of their interactions, almost like those of her parents...almost. Perhaps if they hadn’t been so stressed about keeping her and Paige alive, they’d have been this warm, too.  The thought of Paige brings an odd warmth with it. Whatever’s happening to her, wherever she is, Paige hasn’t even been born yet, much less died. Maybe in this universe, maybe in the world when she’s thrown through the cosmos, the place where she’s shown things no one as insignificant as her should be able to see...maybe in this one, Paige doesn’t die; maybe this is the one where the First Order doesn’t rise, maybe this is the one where the pilot doesn’t burn, where the grey-haired man lives long enough to see his daughter truly smile again, where the galaxy doesn’t die in the flames of a war, but lives in the fire of hope, where a family name isn’t a curse, but a source of pride.

 

She follows the Guardian as they stalk about the streets in silence, Rose gripping the loose sack that held her jumpsuit over her shoulder and keeping her head down as they pass strange-looking stormtroopers. 

“What exactly are we looking for?” she asks, head still down. 

“Trouble,” Baze replies, watching as Chirrut talks to a young woman.  Rose looks up just long enough to see her face, an astounded  _ oh  _ escaping her.  The woman doesn’t look as young as she did as she watched the grey-haired man—her father, Rose realizes—die; she looks hardened, rough, bitter beyond her years and twice as hardy.

“Your father, I—” Rose begins before the woman looks up, eyes a mix of fearful and indignant.

“What do you know of my father?” she asks through gritted teeth, approaching Rose with a kind of anger that only comes with hardened grief.

“He’s in danger,” Rose tells her, stepping forward tentatively as she reveals the hidden insignia of her ring. 

“So you’re with the Rebellion, too.  Well, you’re behind on your information,” she spits as a man in a thick coat appears, seemingly from nowhere.

“Yeah, that happens.  I’ve been undercover for a while now, just getting back to the base myself,” she lies with surprising conviction.  “I’ve got new information, it’s urgent.”

“Rebel spies aren’t trained to just spew information at anyone who looks agreeable,” the man whispers hoarsely, somehow crowding them all against the shaded wall of some building.  “Who are you?” he asks roughly, blaster pressed against her gut discreetly. 

“Just a friend trying to help,” she replies with composure that surprises even herself.  “Information like how this whole city gets fried by the Death Star,” she adds, the man looking to her oddly.  “You know, that giant blaster that likes to point itself at wherever rebels seem to be hiding,” she continues, glancing beyond him to the shipment of kyber being interrupted.  “So, I would suggest pointing  _ your  _ blaster at someone else, because it seems as though we’ve got company,” she whispers boldly, staring back at him as she nods towards the activity.  “And I don’t have one of my own.” She pulls her sack off her shoulder, digging through it for her stunner.

 

She finds herself shoved behind cover, unable to do much with her stunner, but able to watch as the others fight.  The man is strategic in his shots, as though this is all he did. She’d be impressed if she didn’t feel as though this led to something bigger, something awful.  A droid catches a grenade, tossing it over its shoulder mindlessly, and they’re almost caught. When it all quells, she finds herself in a stranger position than before.

“No hostiles,” the droid announces.

“Who are you?” the man asks again, approaching quickly, Rose pointing her stunner at him as he nears.

“One hostile!” the droid exclaims.

“Who is that?” she asks, nodding towards the droid.

“I am K-2S0, a reprogrammed Imperial Droid, I—”

“Go back to the ship,” the man orders, interrupting the droid.  “That’s him, who are you?” the man asks. 

“Rose,” she answers simply.  “I’m a rebel mechanic.”

“I thought you were a spy,” he counters, her stunner still crackling.

“That too…” she replies, pulling her stunner back.

“So why haven’t I heard of you?  And why are you trying to travel with  _ them _ ?” he asks, nodding to the two older men.

“Deep cover, records destroyed, not to be spoken of until I return,” she answers, feeling as though what she’s saying isn’t  _ entirely  _ bantha fodder in the right circumstances.  “Who are  _ you _ ?” she asks, shoving the stunner back into her bag.

“Cassian,” he answers shortly, his reply no more detailed than hers.  “How do you know so much?” he asks.

“Observing the passage of time,” she replies, looking about as a strange feeling overcomes her.  Within moments, hoods are pulled over their heads, and Rose can’t do much to struggle against it. 

  
  
  
  


Rose paces the cell.  She knows what happens to this city, learned about it when she was still young enough not to know how to spell it.  Chirrut prays to himself, his companion commenting on it.

“He’s praying for the door to open,” Baze huffs.

“ It bothers him, because he knows it is possible,” Chirrut counters.  “Baze Malbus was once the most devoted Guardian of us all.”

“I’m beginning to think the Force and I have different priorities,” Cassian mutters.

Rose stops her pacing to regard him.  “Join the club,” she gripes. The Rebel officer looks to her, almost saying something before he’s interrupted.

“Relax, Captain.  We’ve been in worse cages than this one,” Baze assures.

“This is a first for me,” Cassian grumbles.

“There is more than one sort of prison, Captain,” Chirrut explains.  “I sense that you carry yours wherever you go.” He then cranes his neck as though he were trying to see something beyond them.  “Who’s the one in the next cell?”

“What?  Where?” Cassian asks.

“An Imperial pilot!” Baze replies, Rose’s gaze snapping up to glance through the small window. 

“Pilot?”  Cassian rushes forward, Rose watching them carefully. 

“I’m going to kill him!” Baze announces.

“No, no, no, wait!” Cassian insists.

“Come here!” Baze continues. 

“NO!” Cassian nearly shouts as Rose looks beyond them to the pilot.

“Back off, back off,” Baze insists.

“Okay,” Cassian finally agrees.  “Are you the pilot?” he asks softly, the man turning towards him.  “Hey, hey...are you the pilot? The shuttle pilot?”

“What’s wrong with him?” Chirrut asks from behind them.

“Galen Erso.  You know that name?” Cassian continues.

“I brought the message.  I’m the pilot. I’m the pilot.  I’m the pilot,” the man stutters in response.

“Okay, good.  Now where is Galen Erso?” Cassian presses.  The pilot replies, but no sooner than that, the base shakes and crumbles.  Cassian rushes towards the door, opening the cell as their captures scramble about.  “Go, go!” he orders, digging through his things and pulling out his comm. “Kaytoo! Kaytoo, where are you?”

“There you are,” the droid replies in his ever-dry tone.  “I’m standing by as you requested, although there’s a problem on the horizon: there  _ is _ no horizon.” 

“Locate our position.  Bring that ship in here now!” Cassian commands.

“Where are you going?” Chirrut asks as Baze gathers their things from the pile, Rose grabbing her sack as well. 

“I’ve got to find Jyn.  Get the pilot. We need him,” Cassian replies as he rushes out. 

“All right!  I’ll get the pilot,” Baze huffs, tossing Chirrut’s staff to him.  The other Guardian catches and twirls it without turning. “Pilot,” Baze then mutters, addressing the nervous man as he aims his blaster at him.

“No, no, no,” the pilot pleads, turning away, not understanding.  Baze fires, and the bolt hits the cell door, opening it.

“Let’s go,” Baze insists, the group of them rushing out of the crumbling base.

“It’s okay,” Rose assures the pilot as they flee for their lives.  They all stop for a moment, looking to the chaotic horizon in horror as it nears. 

“Chirrut, let’s go!” Baze exclaims, taking the Guardian’s hand and rushing towards the ship that approaches.  Cassian and Jyn rush up from behind.

“Come on, let’s get out of here!” Cassian shouts as he and Jyn pass them, Rose sprinting as hard as she can to follow.  The ship hovers just low enough for them to jump in, the door sliding open, and Rose is the last to enter. “Get us out of here!  Punch it!” Cassian orders, the door closing as he climbs into the pilot’s seat. 

“I’m not very optimistic about our odds,” the droid says.

“Not now, Kay!”  Cassian turns the ship away from the sight of impending doom.  The destruction seems to follow them, even as they fly faster and faster, and Cassian maneuvers the ship to dodge debris.  The nervous pilot watches through the window, pulling back as he’s overwhelmed by the sheer scale of it all. “Come on!” Cassian cries, terrain falling from the sky. “Punch it,” he says again, voice calmer.

“I haven’t completed my calculations,” the droid protests.

“I’ll make them for you,” Cassian mutters, pulling the ship out of the explosion, a streak in the sky all that remains of their presence there. 

 

They let themselves breathe for a moment, the pilot in the denial of grief over his city.  The silence doesn’t last for long, though, and Cassian rips himself from his seat, moving to stand before Rose.

“You  _ knew _ .  How?” he demands.  Rose stands, head still tilted to meet his eye.

“Spy, remember?” she answers simply, looking about to all of them, her eyes falling on the pilot who dies like Paige.

“You called it the ‘Death Star,’” he counters.

“It’s what they called it offhandedly, I didn’t really question it at the time,” she replies, the pilot looking up to her.  “Whatever you’re planning, whatever the Rebellion is planning, you’ve got to freeze it all. If you move forward with your plans too soon, you  _ all _ die,” she warns, looking around to all of them.  “And so does Galen Erso,” she adds, looking directly at Jyn. 

“My father built in a trap, a weakness: a fuse,” Jyn supplies, looking to Rose before glancing back to Cassian.  “He sent me a message, I saw it, there’s a way to beat this, we just need to get the plans.”

“She’s right,” Rose agrees.

“Do you have the message?” Cassian asks Jyn.

“I — I didn’t have time to take it with me, we were running,” she confesses.

“Then we have nothing to convince them with,” Cassian mutters.

“I saw the message.  She isn’t lying,” the pilot admits softly after a moment.

“Great, we have the word of an Imperial’s daughter, and Imperial pilot, and a spy who just appeared from nowhere with no records to prove that she’s even a part of the Alliance,” Cassian scoffs.  Rose feels defeated for a moment, feeling as though if she doesn’t do  _ something _ , she’ll just end up dying with them.  She considers the irony of being flung through time to stop something with all the knowledge of the future and it being useless when the thought occurs to her.

“If you can patch us through, I can convince them…” Rose realizes.

Cassian snorts in disbelief.  “How? If your records were destroyed, you won’t have an identification number.”

“General Organa will believe me,” she assures, rushing towards the cockpit. “Patch me through.” she insists.

“ _ General _ ?” Cassian questions, guarding her from the comm. “ _ General  _ Organa?”

“Whatever she — ”  Rose realizes her folly and quickly corrects herself.  “ _ He  _ is going by now, he’ll vouch for the validity of my claims.  Just patch me through.” Cassian stares down at her, still skeptical.

“Do it,” Jyn demands, Cassian’s gaze flitting to her.  “What’s worse that could happen that already hasn’t? We have a chance at  _ something  _ here, there’s a weakness somewhere in that weapon, and all we have to do is find it.  If whatever she has to say can find it quicker, then we should do it.”

Cassian nods his head, turning towards Rose and reaching behind her to pull out a comm.  He gives his code, tells the dispatcher he has an urgent message for Bail Organa, and soon hands it to her with a look.

“This is Rose Tico,” she begins, trying to hide her nervousness.  “I have urgent information in regards to the Empire’s weapon.”

“How do you even know about the weapon?” a steady voice Rose has only heard on holorecords asks in return, muddled over the connection.

“I know a lot of things.  I know the truth about  _ Darth Vader _ ,” she replies, voice softer as though she were trying to hide it.  “Whatever plans you currently have for the superweapon, you must halt them  _ now _ .  This is an extremely delicate matter, and if anything happens before we can arrive and discuss this new information, everything could fall apart,” she warns.

The silence on the other end feels deafening, it holds in the air for far too long.  “Just get back to the base. We’ll make plans then,” Bail Organa finally replies, Rose sighing in relief.  She hands the comm back to Cassian, moving to sink down against a wall of the ship. She closes her eyes for a moment, listening to Cassian’s footsteps and murmurs as he heads back to the cockpit.  She fiddles with her necklace, only opening her eyes when she hears someone sit next to her.

“How do you know my father?” Jyn asks, Rose glancing over to her, eyes falling on the other woman’s own charm.

“Can’t say much of  _ how _ ,” she admits, the statement not being entirely a lie.  “He calls you ‘Stardust’, doesn’t he?” she asks, the woman’s face seemingly de-aging in an instant before hardening again.

“So you know about this  _ Death Star _ , and you can’t say how...what  _ can  _ you say?” Jyn asks, her own eye caught by Rose’s pendant.

“That you’re right, that someone could destroy it with one shot, and that your father is going to die if we don’t do this right, in fact we  _ all  _ will, and that this whole thing is going to repeat itself if we aren’t careful,” Rose says, taking off her necklace and holding it for Jyn to see as the words pour out.  “My sister has the other half,” she explained.

“Where is she?” Jyn asks, hand going to her own charm.

“Dead,” Rose replies softly, and though it’s true, it feels like a lie.

“Oh,” Jyn sighs.

“Who gave you yours?” Rose asks gesturing to the crystal around Jyn’s neck.

“My mother,” Jyn reveals, and in an instant looks like she wishes she hadn’t.  Rose knows that look: she’s seen it in her own eyes as much as Paige’s.

“My mother’s dead, too,” Rose says, tone assuring.  “Killed by the Empire. Both of my parents were, actually.”  That isn’t completely true, but it feels close enough. “I know how it feels.”  That  _ is  _ true, and it  _ hurts _ .

“A lot of people lose their parents to the Empire, why would we be any different…” Jyn asks, and there’s an amused sort of bitterness in her tone.

“But at least what we’re doing is going to stop that,” Rose assures. “I mean, we know what to do, the pilot delivered the message — ”

“Bodhi,” the man mutters nervously, looking to the two of them.  “My name is Bodhi Rook.”

“You helped us, Bodhi.  Now we’ve just gotta make it back, and this whole war will be over in no time,” Rose replies warmly, hoping her words come true.

  
  
  
  


Rose expects their arrival to be less eventful, but not even a moment passes before they’re all rushed into the base.  Rose is confronted with the face of a man who should be dead in two days’ time. She turns to look at the others, but she’s quickly escorted into a meeting room and left alone with him.

“Tell me, what is your ‘truth’ about  _ Darth Vader _ ?” he asks without preamble, though he needs none.

“That he was once a slave boy named Anakin,” she begins quietly, eyes flitting about nervously before she calms herself.  “That he has two children, the Princess and a farm boy from a desert planet who’ll train to be a Jedi soon. There’s a scoundrel in Tosche Station you’re gonna want to meet.”

He stares at her for a long time, expression hard.  “How?” he finally asks.

“I can’t tell you how, sir, just that I know.”

“And how are we supposed to trust you with this information?” he asks skeptically. 

“I lost my parents to the Empire, and my sister, too.  If I  _ weren’t  _ loyal to the Alliance, I’d have sold the information we discussed to the highest bidder and disappeared,” Rose counters.  “Or I’d have threatened you with it, which I’m not. I just need you to listen.”

Bail Organa considers her for a moment before his expression softens ever so slightly.  “I’m listening,” he replies. 

“Good.  Galen Erso told his daughter how to destroy the Empire’s weapon, and  _ I _ know how to get the plans to do it,” Rose begins, a genuine smile forming for the first time in what feels like forever.

  
  
  


They listen.

The Rebel Alliance actually listens, but Rose knows how Jyn’s plan will end.

“Send me in,” Rose insists, looking around the table, scanning their expressions.  “Get me into their system as a mechanic. People think we’re deaf, dumb, and blind.  I’ll pick up what I can from them while I’m working, maybe sabotage a few repairs. I’ll be too little to them for it to be blamed on me.”

“And just how do you plan on getting assigned anywhere close enough to Scarif to retrieve the plans?” an admiral asks, and she has to take a moment to figure out how.

“You send her in somewhere else and do a hit-and-run,” Bodhi begins, soft voice breaking through the momentary murmur.  “Scarif is just a data center, it isn’t fully equipped to handle a full-on attack. It has shields and stormtroopers, but the maintenance crew wouldn’t be trained enough or big enough to handle battle repairs.  They would have to call in workers from other ships.”

“Even if she gets in, how is she going to get the data in the first place?” the same admiral questions.

“I fake it, tell them there was a surge or flicker from the databank, get in, get the file, and get out,” Rose reasons.

“And then what?” the admiral snickers.

“I transfer the data to my watch,” Rose decides, raising her wrist to show the others.

“You can’t  _ possibly  _ fit the plans for an entire weapons station on there,” the admiral scoffs.

“I can, I’ve enough room on here to fit three of them,” Rose insists, fingers dotting around it as she projects a few of her files.  Some are holos of Paige, others prints for basic wiring mechanisms. “And then when the repairs are done and I’m transferred back to whatever base or ship they send me to, I can use their system to project them out.”

“Even if that works, we’ll have no idea when or where to be to receive the files,” the admiral admonishes.

“Give her a homing beacon,” Cassian suggests, everyone looking to him in surprise.

“And what?  Give away our location to the Empire when she’s caught?” The admiral huffs. 

“Give her a beacon, we’ll track her location, and when she’s ready to transmit, she can destroy it.  We’ll still have the coordinates of her last location, and we’ll know where to jump to receive the files.  They won’t be able to find us once we jump back out.” Cassian’s eyes flit up to hers. “And she won’t get caught, she’s a spy,” he adds with something akin to a smile.

“This is ridiculous, it will never wor — ”

“That doesn’t mean we don’t try,” Bail interrupts firmly, the table of rebel leaders all staring at him.  “Do it, send her in. We’ll wait a week until she’s settled to attack, then it’s just a matter of not giving it away until we have the file.”  He nods, his words seeming final despite the admirals and generals before him.

“You heard him,” Mon Mothma says after a moment.  “Get her in there.”

  
  


Bodhi finds himself compulsively telling her every single thing he knows about the Empire as she gets ready to leave.  She finds it reaassuring, promises they’ll see each other again, thanks Cassian for standing up for her, thanks Baze and Chirrut for their kindness, promises Jyn that if she sees her father, she’ll tell him about her.  They outfit her in a standard Imperial jumpsuit, insert her into the work logs of some transport ship with a lazy data tech crew, and sneak her on with the magazines and spice that seep into the Empire’s ships every so often.

 

It’s quiet, and in trying to help, Chirrut suggests leaving her necklace behind. It remains pressed against her bare skin under her jumpsuit with the beacon as she keeps her head down, listens, and does as she’s told (and what she isn’t, particularly snipping the wires that lead to their cannons while repairing the wires that lead to their climate control). 

A few days in, she transferred to a larger and more prestigious ship to do non-rebel-related repairs.  She keeps her head lowered as she works, hands moving more quickly than the others. She works fast to keep from being noticed, but that backfires.

“Quick work,” an accented voice begins, the shadow of its source looming over her as she’s halfway into a control panel on the bridge.  She pulls herself out, dark oil smudged over her hands and face. “What did you say your name was?” he asks, and it’s not until she looks him in the eye that she’s lost for words.

She’s seen those eyes before, blueish grey, she’s seen those cheekbones before too, and she finds herself unable to fathom how a scared child in forest could grow up to be some high-ranking Imperial officer.  “I didn’t, sir,” she replies, voice clipped as she remember the blood that covered the child. He regards her for a moment, a ghost of a smile almost forming.

“My apologies.  Let me rephrase that: what is your name,  _ mechanic _ ?” he asks, his shadow still looming over her.

“Rose.”  A pause; she feels as though she should stand, meet him on the same level, but she doesn’t.  “...Tico, sir, Rose Tico. My apologies, my head gets a bit muddled when I’m working.” She hopes the now-cruel blue eyes don’t see through her flimsy lie.

“Not every mechanic I have working under me can fix things so efficiently,” he comments, pacing back down the deck as she wipes the grease off her hands. 

 

Two days later, she’s transferred to the Death Star.

 

She just makes simple repairs.  The whole project is a secret, so her access is more restricted, but not entirely gone.  She’s asked if she can repair TIE fighters, and she nods a simple yes. Paige was better at repairing ships, that came with being the one to fly them, but Rose can handle herself.  She’s doing this for Paige anyway, it seems fitting that she’s using the skills her sister taught her. She and a group of other mechanics are escorted down to the hanger and then promptly abandoned.  The rest of them skitter about nervously to claim a ship to work on, and Rose doesn’t know why they’re rushing until she spots the only left.

The fighter is modified, heavily, but regardless of whatever advanced technology may be contained within it, Rose knows she’ll be able to handle it.  By her estimates, there’s still thirty-four standard years left until she’s even born, so whatever tech she’ll have to fiddle with should be easy. She gets to work, too deep within the mechanics of the ship to see who’s whispering, but not deep enough to not hear it.  Her hands become covered in grease as she tries not to think about why seemingly silent and skittish mechanics would be whispering. She makes an effort to actually fix whatever’s damaged instead of her usual discreet destruction. She tries to plan ahead. When the Alliance was making plans, she didn’t offer an escape route, and they didn’t ask.  She figured if she didn’t die in the process, she’d fly off, maybe wait until whatever ship she’s assigned to landed somewhere and disappear with empty cargo crates.

She’s thinking this all over when she feels a strangely familiar presence. Rose never thought of herself as at all attuned to the Force, but as she pulls her head out of the ship, she realizes why she felt as though a dark storm cloud had somehow found its way into the hanger of a battle station.

Darth Vader’s TIE Fighter.  She’s working on  _ Darth Vader _ ’s TIE Fighter. She realizes why the other mechanics scurried about to take any other ship, why they were whispering as she worked.  She wipes a smudge of grease off her face before realizing that in the process of doing just that, she manages to wipe even more grease on.  Vader tilts his head down, regarding her for a moment. She glances at the hangar floor, shoving the pendant that had fallen out of her suit back in before looking back up.

“Who assigned you to repair this ship?” he asks simply, his voice carrying a distinct intimidation. 

“No one,” she replies with all the nervous respect she would attribute to any mechanic in this position. “Sir — Lord.”

“Then  _ why  _ are you making repairs on this fighter,  _ mechanic _ ?” he demands.

“We were all told to make standard repairs on the fighters in here.  This one was the only fighter left by the time I got my tools ready,” she replies truthfully, glancing past him to the other mechanics who watch with intense worry.

“So you  _ were  _ told to repair this ship,” he corrects in an oddly calm tone.

“I suppose so, sir,” Rose says. 

“Then who gave the order?” he demands.

“Lieutenant…Lieutenant Cyter, I think,” she answers, genuinely uncertain in her answer.  Vader considers this for a moment, staring down to the spot on her chest where the pendant would hang, and walks off.  She considers returning to her repairs the moment he’s out of the hanger, but thinks better of it and just wipes her hands off on her suit, looking around to the murmuring mechanics and sighing in relief. 

 

Her shoulders have almost untensed when he returns.  He hauls with him the lieutenant who was supposed to supervise them and give them their assignments.  His jacket is barely on, his hair mussed and his face flushed. Rose would almost find it amusing if it weren’t for the circumstances. 

“Is this the officer who gave you your assignment?” the machine of a man asks menacingly, and Rose can’t even give herself the time to consider the effects of her answer before her head nods a simple  _ yes _ .  “You were assigned the task of supervising them,” Vader growls, the officer’s face reddening after a moment; another beat, and he sinks to his knees.  After a few moments longer, he lies at her feet dead, and Rose has no idea what she’s supposed to do with that. “You are dismissed for the day, mechanic,” the Sith commands.  “Do not touch my ship again.” Rose considers the fact that if death was the punishment for not following orders, then what  _ should  _ be the punishment for touching  _ Darth-kriffing-Vader’s  _ personal TIE Fighter?

 

Well, she  _ was  _ dismissed from her duties, so she goes back to her quarters.  Usually, the other three mechanics she shares the room with crowd her in, but she’s alone now.  She takes out her pendant, wants to wash the grease from the surface and the blood from the runs in the pattern, but doesn’t.  She lets herself cry softly, realizing she’s gone nearly a week now without properly processing her sister’s death or her sudden shift in time.  Both are jarring, but only one leaves a hole in her heart. The other aches to fill it, as though what she does here will stop her sister’s death, and maybe that’s what keeps her going, or maybe just the fact that she exists in a time where her sister can’t be dead because she hasn’t  _ lived  _ is what keeps her going.  Her tears drop onto the pendant, and, ever practical, she uses them to wipe away the filth that encrusts it. 

 

The next day, she wakes up earlier then usual to the sounds of the other mechanics getting dressed in a hurry. 

“What’s happened?” she asks, realizing that none of them had to be up yet.

“Attack on Scarif.  They need mechanics.  Come on, you were called, too,” one of the mechanics replies, quickly pulling up their jumpsuit.  Rose jumps up immediately, pulling hers on too, and having to nearly run to keep up with her roommates as they pace towards the hanger.  They’re shoved unceremoniously onto a small transport ship, crowded between each other and materials for repair. Rose takes a deep breath and feels as though, even through all of this, she’s finally getting somewhere.

 

The damage is bad,  _ really bad _ .  When they had planned a hit-and-run, she hadn’t expected to be so... _ hit _ .  Just by what she could see out the tiny windows of her transport, they’ll be there more than a few days, maybe even a few  _ weeks  _ if there’s more damage internally.  She sighs, weighing the fact that she won’t be able to transmit the data for a longer period of time with the fact that she’d have longer to  _ obtain  _ said data.  They’re shuffled off the transport, a few of them being made to help move the supplies, and they aren’t even shown their quarters before they’re being ordered to fix things.

Rose, once again, is the quickest at her work.  This time, however, it isn’t accidental. As much as the extended timeframe takes  _ some  _ stress out of obtaining the plans off her shoulders, the added stress of getting caught by merely existing evens it out, and she’d rather die on some ship than here, and she can’t quite tell why. 

She shuffles around, follows orders, takes care not to sabotage anything here in case it’s caught before she can be transferred back to the Death Star, and all-in-all remains quiet.  She attempts to remain completely unnoticed, but fails.

She reasons that it makes sense that she’s noticed.  For one, she’s a woman, and in all her time here, she’s only seen one other woman (firey hair, hard gaze, and teeth that seemed unnaturally sharp), and two, she seems to be the only mechanic who is confident in her work. She notices that she’s given the more sensitive assignments, notices that she completes them in half the time she’s given, notices the sly kind of approving smile on the white-caped man’s face when she gets the wiring in the wall leading to the databank done a only few minutes after he calls for her.

“Well, you’re quick, aren’t you?” he asks as she gathers her tools to move onto the next project.

“Thank you, sir,” she mutters softly as she moves to take her leave.

“Director,” he corrects.  “Have you not been here long?”

“I haven’t.  I was transferred to do repairs after the recent damage,” she answers, eyes still downcast. 

“Really?” he begins, an amused sort of disbelief in his tone.  “From where?”

“The Death Star,” she replies simply, glancing up for just a moment to find him regarding her with a dark expression.  “...Director?” she asks after a moment of tense silence.

“You’re dismissed, mechanic,” he replies hotly after a moment, and she leaves.

 

There’s a repair that needs to be made in the data bank. 

She can’t believe it.  She’s spent days on the planet working diligently, trying to figure out how to fake access so she can get near it, and she’s being called to make a repair directly to it.  She’s escorted into the very room, the front panel of the console already open and exposed when she arrives. She glances from it to the white-caped Director, and back to it, belatedly noticing the large bloodstain on it.  She glances back to the Director, sees his black glove covered with blood, and finds the grey-haired man destined for death kneeling on the ground, holding his nose and cheek as they both bleed.

“Ah, good, mechanic,” the Director says by way of greeting, oddly calm for someone covered in blood.  “It would appear that some fluids made their way into the control console. See to it that whatever wiring it tampered with is fixed.  Oh, come now, Galen, you can stand,” he adds as a parting blow, not bothering to look back as he moves to leave the room.

Rose kneels down in front of the console, hands moving to fix things as she keeps her head down.   “Stardust is alive,” she whispers, the Director not hearing, but the man glancing up, one eye red, the other almost tearing up.  “I need a distraction,” she then adds, nodding her head back to the Director. The grey-haired man nods back, rising to his feet and stumbling over to the Director and steadying himself with a bloody hand on his white cape. 

“I’m sorry, old friend…” he mutters, words slurred with swollen lips as the Director glances to him with distaste.

“You’re staining my cape,” he spits, stepping forward and letting the grey-haired man stumble as he tries to follow.  The other officers’ eyes are fixed on the scene, and Rose begins her repairs. The grey-haired man limps after the Director, eventually stumbling to the ground again.  As Rose discreetly replaces the wet wiring of the panel, the Director yells for the other officers to help the man to his feet.

She takes that as her chance and begins scrolling through the data bank as they drag the man behind The Director. Name after name goes by, and none of them  _ feel  _ right. Just as she comes upon the file name  _ Stardust _ , The Director turns and spots her. 

“What are you doing?” he asks, the grey-haired man looking up fearfully. 

“Checking that my wiring works, sir,” she replies easily, expression betraying no data thievery.  He stares for a moment before huffing out a laugh. After a beat, he turns, signalling for the other officers to follow. 

Admittedly, her watch isn’t perfectly compatible with the technology used in the imperial data banks, but she already has the panel open and wires exposed, so it’s only a matter of trial and error before she can transfer the files from the database to her watch, the prints for the weapon looking comically small in the tiny projection of her watch.  She closes the panels back up just in time for one of the officers from before to return and usher her out of the room altogether.

 

She sees the grey-haired man— _ Galen _ — sporadically throughout the rest of her time on Scarif.  His eyes always meet hers, and there’s a sad kind of worry in them.  She always avoids his gaze, not wanting to be seen staring at the man she knows constructed the Death Star’s weakness.  It seems like she’s now the Director’s go-to mechanic for whenever something breaks, whether that be the result of his volition or someone else’s incompetence.  He yells,  _ a lot _ .  If Rose thought watching some Imperial officer choke to death was jarring, then watching the Director shout at and hit people is somehow  _ worse _ . 

The repairs aren’t done yet, but she’s transferred separate from her roommates back to the Death Star.  She doesn’t know why, but she develops a sneaking suspicion of the cause when she sees Galen Erso and the Director enter the same transport shuttle and sit in the upper level.  When they exit the ship, she can see the Director sneer at the blue-eyed Imperial.

“ _ Tarkin _ ,” he spits, having to tilt his head back to meet the man in the eye.

“I see you’ve brought your friend,” the Imperial—Tarkin — replies without regard.  “Let’s see if he can manage not to turn any more of our pilots,  _ yes _ ?” he continues with a calm, demeaning tone.  The Director opens his mouth to say something before promptly shutting it petulantly.  He brushes past the taller Imperial, Galen trailing behind him, still limping from the other day’s activities.

Rose is instructed to help move cargo back off the transport ship, and does so wordlessly.  As Galen passes, he stares at her imploringly. She doesn’t respond.

She’s assigned different quarters, and the mechanics she’s paired with are somehow quieter than the ones from before.  Despite this, she feels as though eyes are constantly on her. Whether she’s fixing a calcinator or rewiring the lighting in a turbolift, it’s like someone is waiting to catch her in a trap of her own (or maybe Galen Erso’s) design.  She spots him every so often, expression always neutral, but eyes always pleading for his silence. By the time his lip heals, he’s done something to get it split open again. The Director seems satisfied with the result of whatever it was, however, a satisfaction that’s only ruined by a comment by  _ Tarkin _ .  She watches their little game, whenever she can.  They aren’t at all discreet about it, and she can sometimes still hear whispers about it in the maintenance halls that go to and from the bridge for repairs.

It’s in one of these halls that she finds herself being tugged into a mostly empty closet, the dim light of her beacon almost showing through the thick fabric of her jumpsuit as she suppresses a scream.  Instead, she flails her arms, hitting the assailant and trying to push them away until she hears their voice.

“Stop,  _ stop— _ ”  She recognizes the panicked voice.  “I’m not going to hurt you,” Galen promises.  “What do you know about Jyn?” he asks, voice softening with the name.  She pulls away, smoothing down her jumpsuit and stepping back.

“She was fine when I left.  She’s with the Alliance,” Rose replies, heart still pounding from the stress of it all.  “She got your message.”

“Does she have the plans?” he asks desperately. 

“No,” Rose answers simply, pulling her wrist up and projecting the prints.  “I’ve got them, I just need to transmit them. It was safer this way,  _ she’s safer this way _ ,” she assures him, the man seemingly melting in relief at the prospect.

“How will you escape once they have the plans?” he then asks, and Rose stares at the floor.

“I hadn’t gotten that far...once they have the plans, it won’t really matter, will it?” she admits, and she can sense the man frown.

“There’s a shipment of kyber coming in a few days,” he whispers gruffly.  “The containers they ship it are expensive to make, so they reuse them. Leave with them,” he insists, looking to her imploringly. 

“If I can get the plans transmitted by then, I will...but there’s no guarantee of being able to get them back to the Alliance.  But promise me you’ll leave with it even if I don’t.”

“What?” he asks incredulously.

“You’ve got a daughter, you have to get back to her.” she insists.  “It might take time, but the moment the Alliance has the plans, they’ll find the weapon’s weakness, and this entire thing will be dust.”

“What will happen to you?” he whispers.

“I can take care of myself,” she sighs.  “Just promise you’ll do it.”

They stand in silence for a few moments before he finally speaks.

“All right,” he agrees.  “Do you know what happened to the pilot I sent the message with?” he then asks.

“Bodhi?  He’s with the Alliance, too; they both made it.”

“Good...good, that’s good.  Thank you.” He seems to relax.

“Where are they getting the kyber from?” she asks.  “They destroyed Jedha.”

“They found another supply in the Unknown Regions, but that’s all I’ve heard of it,” he answers, tone a bit frantic.

“I should go, they’ll be calling for me any minute now,” she says after a moment, moving to leave the enclosed space.  “Wait a few minutes before leaving yourself, or if you’re caught it will look suspicious,” she advises, knowing that even then it might look strange.  She once walked in on someone waiting to leave after a  _ rendezvous  _ on base.  She had seen their partner pass with a smug grin in the hall.  Still, she knew that if they were caught in the same space at the same time, it would look suspicious enough to investigate.  After that thought, she bows her head and takes her leave, letting her steps become soft, but not silent.

 

Soon enough, she is called for.  It doesn’t surprise her, really, but when she realizes  _ where  _ she’s been called, she’s sure it must be a trap of some kind.  There was an accident in one of the armories. Apparently someone’s blaster malfunctioned and left a giant hole in the wall.  The Director is there, for some reason, and his own blaster gleams on his belt.

“Good,  _ the  _ mechanic,” he greets as she’s shuffled into the room.  “I’m sure they’ve told you of what  _ occured  _ here?” he asks, voice sounding as though he wasn’t talking about the hole in the wall at all.

“Blaster went off, right?” she replies, trying to make herself sound as thoughtless as possible.

“Right,” he replies, eyes gleaming with some unspoken truth.  The damage is close to the floor, too close to stand while repairing, so she kneels in front of it.  She doesn’t like the feeling she gets, the rolling in her stomach as she can almost sense him lurking behind her.  She looks over the hole in the wall panel for a moment before rising.

“I won’t be able to fix the panelling, but I can fix the light wiring,” Rose explains, looking back to him and finding him staring at her.  She looks beyond him, eyes flitting between the blasters and grenades before returning to him. She could pocket one of them, her jumpsuit is baggy enough to hide one.  It could be the difference between dying there and living to escape.

_ It’s a test _ .  She casts her eyes back down in realization.

“Just do what you can,” he replies haughtily.  She nods, kneeling back in front of the hole. She reaches in, connecting what wires she can bare-handed, only pulling back a little when they shock her.  She knows better than to do this without gloves, but she’s used to the feeling. Just as she’s about to finish up, something shines and catches her eye. She reaches farther in and picks it up carefully.  In the process of burning through the wall, the blaster bolt also managed to dislodge a shard of durasteel from its place. It fits in the palm of her hand, sharp, but not sharp enough to immediately cut her when she grasps it.  She takes it, shimmies it carefully up her sleeve, and goes to stand. As she rises, a sharp edge she hadn’t seen slices her cheek. She pulls back quickly, hand holding her cheek as a soft but irritated “ _ Kriff! _ ” escapes her.  She scoots back, pulling her hand away for a moment, her stomach recoiling at the amount of blood.

“What happened?” the Director asks, more curiosity than concern in his tone.

“Nothing, sir, just a sharp edge I didn’t see.” she replies, standing and holding her cheek.

“Perhaps you’d have seen it if your hair were properly put up — were you not issued any standard hair product at all?” he asks, regarding her with more obvious curiosity. 

“No, sir, I was not,” she answers simply, pulling back her hand and wincing.

“Hmm...it’s  _ Director _ , now go and clean yourself up,  _ mechanic _ .”  He dismisses her with a wave of his hand.  She tucks the shard of durasteel further into her sleeve and thinks of using it on him.

 

She washes her face, letting the blood drip down the sink, before smearing bacta over it and staring at herself in the mirror.  She doesn’t recognize herself, and it isn’t just the cut. Her eyes aren’t bright, she’s paler than usual, and she finds something utterly disgusting in the colors she wears.  She tears herself away from the mirror and forces herself to go and sit on her bunk. She doesn’t bother with taking out her pendant; today it feels wrong to even  _ look  _ at it.  She doesn’t cry, even though she feels as though she should want to.  She just stares at her feet until she’s called for again.

 

She’s really just trying to get to the cafeteria when it happens again.  She’s surprised still, and has to suppress a scream, but she knows who it is, and she still slaps his arm.

“Could you be a little less  _ creepy  _ next time?” she whispers indignantly.

“There isn’t going to be a next time.  The crates go out in two days,” he warns.

“Then go with them, but I still haven’t had the chance to transfer the plans,” she insists, having trouble keeping her voice down.

“When they discover I’m missing, they’ll lock down this entire place.”

“Things still break during lockdowns, I’ll be fine.”  She sighs, looking to the door of the closet. “Go home, Galen.”  She pushes past him and closes the door behind her.

  
  


She’s called into the Director’s office, and the moment she enters, her eyes are scanning the entirety of it, looking for any needed repairs.

“Miss  _ Tico _ ,” he greets, waving the officer that accompanied her away.  Her hands aren’t in binders, but she still feels as though she can’t move them.

“Is there anything wrong, Director?” she asks, tone not betraying her anxiety.

“No, nothing you’ve done.  Why would you ask?” he replies, eyes scanning over her.

“I’m usually called when something’s broken,” she states.

That, for some reason, pulls a small laugh from him.  “I suppose that’s true. No, I was going through your files to see who had neglected to supply you with basic necessities and couldn’t find much of your activities from more than a week ago.”

“That’s…upsetting.” she reasons, and that garners a smile from him that makes her stomach turn more than when she was bleeding.

“Yes, it is,” he agrees, pulling open a drawer in his desk and taking something from it.  “I’ll have it investigated for you, have no doubts,” he adds in a falsely reassuring tone.  He pushes the small tin of... _ something _ ...across the desk to her.  “In the meantime...”

She takes it.  “Hair gel,” she mutters, cogs in her mind turning.

“To keep your hair back,” he explains, and she puts it all together.

“Thank you,” she replies, trying to make herself sound as ignorant to her discovery as possible. 

“You’re dismissed,” he says after a moment, waving his hand as she turns. 

 

It’s two days later, and she’s fixing a lighting panel on the bridge when they discover Galen is missing.  The Director is fuming and pacing about, and Tarkin is almost smiling.

“I don’t see why you’re surprised,” Tarkin comments, nearly arrogant in his tone.  The Director is practically frothing at the mouth as he begins to reply, but stops himself.

“He will not get far,” a deep mechanical voice announces.  “The weapon is finished, we no longer require him.”

Rose takes a deep breath and turns.  Vader is even more menacing in the broken light of the bridge.  She breathes out and turns back to her work, trying to focus and only managing to for long enough to get the lights back on.  She wipes off her hands on her jumpsuit and rises. She turns, only to find the mechanical monstrosity of a man  _ staring  _ at her.  She stares back for a moment, having to crane her neck to do it.  A feeling creeps over her, not like she’s been caught, but like he  _ knows _ her.  She waits a beat, bows her head, and takes her leave. 

  
  


She’s made to fix a steamer in the laundry room that same day, and stuffs an officer’s uniform down the front of her jumpsuit before she leaves.  No one notices it, and she puts it under her pillow that night with her shard of durasteel.

  
  


She awakes the next morning with a headache and purpose.  Her roommates, too busy with their own tasks, hardly notice as she lingers after them.  She changes quickly, stuffs the durasteel up her sleeve, and slicks back her bangs. She looks in the mirror and doesn’t recognize herself.  She would smile, but it would be out of character. As she’s about to leave, she takes out her beacon, and crushes it under her foot, the dull light of it fading as she walks out.

 

It’s a bit of a long walk through the corridors to the transmission room.  It’s quiet still, that time between shifts where almost everyone is asleep or desperately hoping to be so soon.  She passes a few troopers who pay her little notice, still tired from their own shifts. Upon entering the transmission room, she’s greeted by a single ensign; eyes red from exhaustion, he does little more than nod at her. 

“You’re dismissed,” she says crisply, trying to tailor her voice closer to that of a senior officer.  The ensign doesn’t doubt her, and even breathes a thanks as he scuttles out. The room isn’t very large by any means, but her steps still echo as she approaches the panel.  She knew she’d have trouble directly transmitting the plans from her watch, so she takes the watch off, and fiddles with the wires of both it and the panel until she can twist them together.  Sirens go off the moment the plans appear on the panel’s holoprojector. She looks out the port to see a small Rebel ship lurking just outside. She smiles, touching the plexiglass. She can see her reflection in it: her bangs have still managed to fall back into her face. 

Someone else’s reflection is there too. 

She pulls the shard of durasteel from her sleeve and moves to cut the Director with it, but before she can, he grabs her wrist.

“Was this your plan?” he asks, voice hard and grip cruel.  “Wait for the Rebellion to come, outnumbered and overpowered, and transfer the plans then?”

“ _ No, _ ” she growls, tugging her wrist hard and kneeing him in the gut.  He groans in pain, grip loosening just enough for her to properly pull her wrist away.  He grabs the shard of durasteel from her grasp, cutting his glove but not his hand in the process as she goes for his blaster.  She unhooks it from his belt, but as she’s distracted with switching the safety off, he backhands her hard enough to make her fall.  Her earlier cut reopens, and she frantically searches for the blaster with blood in her eyes.

“It won’t work.  You’ll be another example of their  _ failure _ ,” he taunts, approaching her with the shard still in his grasp.  She scoots away until her back is against the wall, reaching around blindly for the blaster as he nears.

“Like Galen Erso?” she retaliates, blood now dripping into her mouth, the taste of it bitter and metallic.  He stops in his tracks, staring at her with a gaze of fire.

“You helped him escape?” he bites out, staring at the blood on her face.

“Jyn Erso, too.  She sends her regards,” Rose bites back, hand finally finding the blaster and firing at him.  Her aim is off, and it only hits his shoulder, but he goes down regardless. She pushes herself up against the wall, standing and limping over to the console, kicking the shard of durasteel away from him on the way.

After that, the actual process of transferring the plans seems anticlimactic, only a few buttons and switches needed.  Her eyes glance up, peering through the plexiglass at the ship. She isn’t sure if they’ve received them until she feels the hole torn in her heart begin to mend itself.

“Godspeed, Rebels,” Rose whispers, smiling to herself.

 

She actually hears the Director’s grunting before she feels the shard of durasteel lodge itself into her back.  She cries out, a high-pitched genuine cry of anguish, dropping his blaster in the process. She tries pushing him back, every move she makes disrupting the shard and sending sharp twitches of pain up her back.  They both collapse to the ground, and she drags herself away, hand searching for the blaster still. The Director remains where he is, shouting for help, voice breaking after the first few times. Rose leans her side against one of the walls and coughs up a glob of mucus and blood.  It isn’t until she watches the door slide open that she  _ laughs _ .

She’s already dying, and  _ Darth Vader  _ is going to kill her.

That’s what she assumes, anyway, when she sees him enter.  He approaches the scene; a wave of a hand, and the blaster is across the room.

She laughs at that, too.  She doesn’t know why she finds it funny.  She coughs again, and another glob of blood and mucus comes up, but she wipes it away with the back of her hand and watches him.

The Sith Lord kneels in front of her, and the Director shouts at him, telling him to call for a med team, telling him to help him, telling him to kill her.  Vader just stares, mask tilted just enough that she can see the outline of where his eyes would be. Rose looks down, her bloody hand grasping at her necklace proudly.

“You figured it out, didn’t you?” she murmurs incredulously, looking up at him.

The helmeted head tilts toward her pendant before looking back to her face.

“ _ What are you doing _ ?” the Director demands.  “Call for the medics!”

Vader regards her for a moment more before rising.  He turns, looming over the Director, and extends his hand.  The Director ceases speaking immediately, grasping blindly at his throat.  Rose watches wordlessly, still struggling to breathe herself. The Director goes limp, blaster wound no longer bleeding as he falls fully to the ground.

Vader turns, and though Rose knows she should be scared, she isn’t.  He steps towards her, shadow cast over her, and looms for a moment. She holds her breath, waiting for  _ something  _ to happen. 

 

Vader walks away, the door sliding shut behind him.  She laughs again.

  
  


She’s fainting w hen she feels herself wrenched from this time and place in the cosmos and dumped into her own.  She’s barely awake as she sees someone shout for help, feels herself pulled onto a cart. As she’s rushed through the halls of the ship, she hears a familiar voice.

“ _ Rose _ !” Paige screams, voice breaking as she runs to her side.  Rose forces her eyes open, turning her head to watch her sister as she holds her hand.  Paige is still in her flight suit, her own pendant hanging from her neck. Rose smiles and lets herself fall asleep.

  
  
  
  


Rose isn’t confused when she wakes up, not initially, but when she sees a familiar, but aged, face, she is.

Her sister is asleep in a chair beside her bed, one hand on her pendant, and the other holding hers.  Rose sits up and hisses in pain, the now-aged man stepping towards her.

“You’re awake, good,” he greets with a smile. 

“...Bodhi?” Rose asks, settling against her pillows.  “What happened?”

“It seems there was a small explosion.  A piece of durasteel lodged itsel — ”

“No, I mean — _ what happened _ ?” she asks again, and his smile grows.

“Good, you’re back...Cassian is gonna be happy about that.”  Bodhi moves, sitting softly on the edge of her cot.

“He’s alive?” she asks in amazement.

“He is.  Jyn too. It was strange meeting you for the first time and not having you recognize me,” he admits.

“Yeah...sorry about that,” Rose replies with a chuckle that disrupts her wound, making her wince.

“Don’t be.”  He pauses, gathering his thoughts.  “I can tell you what happened after you left, but would you mind clarifying some things?”

“Yeah...yeah, sure,” Rose agrees.

“Who...exactly  _ are you _ ?” Bodhi asks, tone hinting at amazement.

“Rose Tico, mechanic.”  She offers her hand and he shakes it.  “And...unwitting time traveler — I  _ think _ .”  She chuckles to herself.  “I’m still not entirely sure what happened, but I saw you  _ die _ , and it had been after Paige had died and...something just  _ broke _ , I wasn’t in control and the  _ Force  _ threw me through time, showed me  _ everything _ .”

“But...Paige isn’t dead, I - _ I’m _ not dead,” Bodhi says, confused.

“I...changed things.  You, Cassian, Jyn — all of you were all supposed to die, I saw it.”

“Chirrut and Baze  _ are  _ dead,” he admits sadly.  “Galen too.”

Rose feels her heart sink, shocked.  “What?” she asks, voice almost breaking.  “What happened?”

“Time,” Bodhi answers simply.  “Baze and Chirrut are buried together outside Jedha City.  Jyn spread Galen’s ashes on Lah’mu.”

“Buried on Jedha...” Rose trails off.  “But Jedha City was destroyed, I saw it happen,” she murmurs in confusion.

Bodhi shrugs, his gaze somewhat distant with memories.  “It took twenty years, but after the Empire was defeated, we rebuilt it.”

“It was  _ ash _ ,” Rose insists, incredulous.

“I did say it took twenty years, didn’t I?  We had help.” Bodhi looks right at her. “I don’t know what you changed, if I’m honest, but what you did...it saved a lot of people, not just me.” 

“You’re gonna have to tell me what happened after you got the plans,” Rose says, nearly in disbelief. 

“Gladly.”

  
  
  
  


Princess Leia Organa stands beside her father, staring out the viewport of their ship.  It isn’t strategically advisable for them to be the ones receiving the plans, but they were the closest.  She should be watching the progress of the plans uploading into the ship’s data-center, but  _ something  _ catches...not her eye, but the strange sixth sense she’s had her entire life.  They’re much too far away for her to see anything but the battle station itself, but there’s a nagging feeling of remembrance that she can’t shake.  She stares ahead, and nearly feels the presence of someone she swears she knows. She steps toward the viewport, and she can almost feel them step closer.  A moment passes, and she can tell something major just happened, though she doesn’t know what.

“What is it?” her father asks, standing beside her.

“It feels like someone just made a tiny cut in a rope, like something’s beginning to unravel,” Leia replies, trying to find the right words to describe the distinct feeling that she can’t seem to shake.

“Sir, we have the plans,” a lieutenant announces.

“Good.  Make the jump to lightspeed,” her father replies.

“Where to now?” Leia asks as the lieutenant leaves.

“Our base on Yavin IV.  We need to bring the rest of the leadership these plans, make for an attack,” he answers, looking to her fondly. “And there are some people there I want you to meet: an old friend from the Clone Wars, and a kid your age.”

  
  
  
  


Bail Organa sends an Alderaanian ambassador to retrieve Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker, but by some stroke of fate, she ends up crashing into the sands of Tatooine.  She’s fine, the ship  _ isn’t _ , and her retrieval of the pair is time-urgent.  So, after a brief discussion with the boy’s caretakers, she asks Kenobi where to get a ship.

He knows just the place.

Mos Eisley Spaceport: one would  never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.  However, they would find a pilot, with a ship of his own, and a furry co-pilot who’s just as good at growling as he is at flying.  The agent wasn’t sent with any funds, and the pilot is about to reject the strange band, but the promise of an Alderaanian ambassador is seemingly good enough to get them back to the base.

  
  
  
  
  


Luke Skywalker is, apparently, an incredible pilot.  He doesn’t actually get to meet Leia Organa until after the Death Star is destroyed, but he introduces her to the pilot that flew them there when he does.  He’s introduced to the Princess of Alderaan by the Prince Consort of Alderaan, and the latter ushers the two youths to a more private area with urgent matters to discuss.

  
  
  
  


Darth Vader is unraveling.  He’s recently killed Director Krennic, watched as his battle station was destroyed by a handful of rebels, and…  _ something else _ .

He feels the girl’s presence, nearly runs away from the familiarity of it, and shoves himself into his fighter when the rebels attack.  There’s something familiar in that pilot, too, something that aches and stings. He buries it, but it cuts him before he can manage to.

  
  
  


Darth Vader is sent to threaten the Prince Consort of Alderaan into submission by the Emperor, but the man stares him in the eyes with knowing, and Vader is sure that even death itself couldn’t sway his mind.  (The irony of that isn’t lost on the Sith Lord, cloaked in black as he is.) Vader is making vague, but menacing, promises when he’s interrupted by a presence. It’s familiar, and she doesn’t have to speak for him to know who it is.

“Lord Vader,” the white-clad figure greets as she moves toward the pair of men.  “We weren’t expecting you, we’d have prepared an arrival party.” She speaks, and with it comes the same contained, diplomatic tone he remembers from her mother, but in her eyes there’s a fiery anger that he knows far too well.  He can’t help but be reminded of his late wife when he sees her. He leaves shortly thereafter, ties to some strengthening, and ties to others unraveling.

  
  
  


Boba Fett returns with the name of the pilot who destroyed the weapon:  _ Luke Skywalker _ .  Vader should be angry at Owen and Beru,  _ desperately  _ wants to be, but he just feels numb.  He’s on Tatooine, has to deal with  _ Jabba _ , when he properly sees his son for the first time.  The boy has returned home, a familiar saber in hand, and is helping move his aunt and uncle off their moisture farm when he spots him.  The boy gets an eerie feeling and trusts it, pushing his aunt and uncle onto the  _ Falcon  _ before looking back and seeing the harbinger of death that Vader has become.

“Han,  _ punch it _ !” Luke shouts as they take off. 

  
  


Luke is training to be a Jedi, but for Vader, Leia is a bigger problem. 

 

She’s pissed, has a way with words, and even worse: people trust her.  The whole thing brings back eerie reminders of the wars he served in before this one.  Alderaan is peaceful:  _ she  _ is  **not** .  They meet again, this time on a more literal battlefield, and despite the stormtroopers that follow, she only aims at him.

  
  


He meets his son halfway through his training, and halfheartedly tempts him to join him.  Luke refuses, of  _ course _ he refuses, he’s inherited his stubbornness, and he fights like Leia Organa was his sparring partner.  Palpatine’s orders seem to fade out of the foreground of his thoughts when he battles the sandy-haired boy from Tatooine—and his son, all at once.

  
  
  


Han Solo doesn’t have half a shot with The Princess, but The Rebel seems to be warming up to him.  He wasn’t planning on sticking around the Rebellion, not really, but Luke throws an arm around his shoulder and Leia hugs them both in the midst of their celebration and—well, it doesn’t really take much to convince him to stay.  Besides, being  _ friends  _ with the princess of Alderaan, while not profitable, does garner protection.  She laughs at him sometimes, yells too, rolls her eyes and smacks his arm; he can’t help but fall in love with it.  The Prince Consort of Alderaan doesn’t glare so much as give a warning look in his general direction, but Han would take a blaster shot for the woman, and to him that’s enough.  Since his ship is already equipped to carry cargo, he mainly works in smuggling goods to and from various Rebel bases undetected. He’d mind it more if her eyes didn’t begrudgingly light up every time he came back.

  
  


There’s a siege on Aldera, Palpatine’s orders, and what Vader expects to find there, he doesn’t know. 

 

He isn’t prepared for what he finds there either.

 

The Queen and Prince Consort aren’t present, but The Princess and S abé are.  She isn’t dressed like a princess, though, and Vader stops in his tracks when he sees her upon the throne.  Sabé stands beside her, nearly casual in her posture.

“Lord Vader.  We weren’t expecting you,” she says by way of greeting, voice high and poised.  Her gown is elaborate, it’s out of character for her, but not for who she’s trying to imitate.  Her face is painted, hardly any resemblance to herself, but achingly similar to  _ The Queen’s _ .  “I certainly hope you didn’t kill the doorman, we told him to let you in,” she then adds, standing and stepping down from the pedestal of the throne.  He looms, half an army behind him, but her presence is strong enough to almost make him step back.

“Where is Queen Breha Organa?” he asks after a moment of tense silence.

“I’ve no idea,” she lies, and does so well.  “Out, I suppose. Were you expecting  _ The Queen _ ?” she asks, and the shudder leaves him as an extended mechanical breath.  “She’s not here.”

  
  
  


The Princess is locked in her quarters with her former tutor as company, and Vader can’t help but feel as though that was her intention.  She keeps up the visage of his dead wife, and it takes two weeks of having to see it every day for him to break.

“What has Bail Organa told you?” he demands one day.

“Nothing you don’t already know,” she replies calmly.

“What do you know?” he asks in the same tone.

“ _ Everything! _ ” she bites back, standing.  Sabé reaches to hold her back before pulling her hand away.  “That you killed my mother, that you left us to go do your  _ master’s  _ bidding, that you helped them build that  _ thing! _ ”  She approaches him, righteous anger she inherited from both sides flaring up star-bright.  Despite his stature and ability, he still backs away.

“You...and  _ Luke _ ,” he voices, vocoder barely picking it up.

“ _ Luke _ , you’ll never see him again,” she spits, chest heaving in anger.

“I have a daughter.”  The realization hits him like a blaster bolt.

“No,  _ you  _ don’t.”  She steps back, seemingly composing herself.  “Get out, don’t you have a city to oppress?” she mocks.

  
  
  


Bail Organa does not yell.

He’s screaming at Han Solo, though. 

He and his wife are off-planet while his daughter remains in the very city Imperial troops are marching into. The Wookiee takes over piloting as they begin to argue.

“How could you let her do that?” Bail demands.

“ _ Let _ her?  Have you met your daughter?  No one  _ lets  _ Leia do anything,” Han counters in frustration.

“You left her down there as the only remaining royal in a capital city under siege!  Do you know what that means for her?” Bail snaps, fear coiling in his heart.

“She has a plan, and it was either help her get you and the queen out, or ‘let her’ find some other way to distract the Empire and half their troops!” Han explains, tugging a hand through his hair in frustration.

“What?” Bail exclaims in disbelief.

“She said that the Emperor and whoever he sent to take over the city would be too busy to notice or care about the Rebellion’s movements to see what we were doing, and that we could hit half their bases without taking half that fire back,” the pilot continues.

“It might not even work,” Bail huffs, sitting beside his wife and taking her hand.

“That doesn’t mean we don’t try,” Han sighs, staring at the  _ Falcon _ ’s deck.

  
  
  
  


In a two week period, the Rebellion hits three Imperial bases, two destroyers, five battlecruisers, and eight transport ships, their casualties remaining in the double digits as the Empire tries to recover.  The captured city remains under Imperial rule, but the Emperor calls back Vader, demanding he take the princess too. Most of the troops remain there, the Empire only being able to spare a few for travel. The Empire is stretching itself thin trying to keep hold of everything.  The string of its fate is tight, and there are already so many little cuts, it’s only a matter of time until it unravels completely. 

 

The Emperor orders Vader to have the Princess executed publicly, and he nods in agreement, head bowed in subjugation.

  
  
  


Luke Skywalker rescues the Princess with the help of Han Solo, and it feels oddly familiar as they escape.  Coruscant is put on lockdown once they’re discovered, but it’s already too late. Vader watches the  _ Millennium Falcon  _ pull off into the sky, knows he’s fully capable of stopping it, and doesn’t.

 

Leia starts washing her face the moment they hit lightspeed.  “Did it work?” she asks, scrubbing off weeks of pale powder.

“It better have, your father wouldn’t stop glaring at me, even as we halved their numbers,” Han snarks back. 

“Worth it if we really  _ halved  _ their numbers,” she reasons, drying her face and stepping back to the main area.  “They kept me in the dark. What’s happened in Aldera?”

“Sabé gathered the hidden cells we had in the city, managed to push the Imperial troops far enough out to fight properly,” Luke replies.

“Civilian casualties?” Leia asks, trying to relax into her seat. 

“In the low hundreds last time we checked,” Luke replies reluctantly, Leia wincing at the estimate.

“Can we afford to send them any help?”

“Mon Mothma says once we take Coruscant, we’ll have the resources, but we don’t right now,” Luke answers honestly.  After a beat, he continues. “Are  _ you  _ all right?” he asks.  “You were trapped in that city with them for weeks, and then  _ Coruscant _ .” 

“I’m fine, Luke,  _ we’re  _ fine,” Leia insists.

  
  


When she arrives back on base, her parents are too happy to see her to immediately be mad.

“Don’t  _ ever  _ do that again,” her father admonishes, holding her tightly to him.

“It worked, didn’t it?” she replies, hugging him back harder.

  
  


Darth Vader is ordered by his master to find and kill the entire Organa bloodline.  Despite the Rebellion being the Empire’s biggest problem, the Emperor seems fixated on destroying only a very small part of it.  Vader isn’t,  _ Vader  _ just wants this entire thing to be over.  He sets off on his mission, genuinely not caring whether or not he succeeds.

 

In the process of tracking the Organas, he comes upon his son again.  The boy is better trained now, older. In his eyes is conflict, though he tries to suppress it while they fight.  Both of his children want to kill him, even if one is more reluctant to do so, and he knows it’s entirely his own fault.

 

There’s barely a thread holding  _ Darth Vader  _ together.

  
  
  


Luke Skywalker understands his sister’s rage.  He  _ tries  _ to, at least.  He’s angry too, angry about either being told lies about his father his entire life, or his father truly turning from being a great man to a monster (it’s both, he  _ knows _ it is, but he can’t afford to be angry at all of his parental figures).  Leia’s anger is different from his, though: they’re both mad at their father for his crimes, but where Luke’s anger seems to bog down his mind, it seems to clear Leia’s, at least outwardly.  Owen thought the entire Rebellion to be nonsense, but when Luke tells him of their burned home on Tatooine, Owen swallows his pride and just nods. Obi-Wan trains him in the ways of the Jedi, but their teachings just leave him feeling disenfranchised.  He questions his mentor once, but keeps the rest of his thoughts to himself the moment he sees the look in his eyes. Luke begins to see more where Leia’s anger comes from, but he fights as hard as he can against letting it consume him. The crack in his shell comes on a mission to Naboo.  He sees his mother for the first time, lying in her tomb, and though usually it would make him cry, he instead seethes silently until Han claps a hand against his shoulder and gives him a half-hug. This is the woman his father killed,  _ and for what _ ?

 

There’s something wedged within that crack, widening it, when _his father_ tries to tempt him to join him again.  Mothma’s plans to capture Coruscant are working, but Luke can’t focus on the greater good.  He wasn’t trying to kill him when they begin their fight, but he is _now_.  Luke feels a revolting kind of arrogance in the proposal, as though _he_ could join the man who killed his mother.  Luke pushes deeper and deeper into the palace as _his father_ tries to block his strikes.  He’s got the machine of a man at a cross when he hears a _repulsive_ voice taunt him.

“Good…” the Emperor hisses.  All at once, Luke feels his anger dissipate into mere disgust.  The Emperor seemingly has no regard for the battle going on outside, repellent eyes only focusing on the two of them.  “Perhaps you will be able to do what your father has not.” He nears the scene, and Luke withdraws, kicking Vader back and stepping away from them both. 

“No…” he mutters to himself.  “ _ No! _ ” he shouts to them, Rebel troops entering and firing at the pair.  They brush past him as they move forward, and Luke pushes the pair away with a single gesture.

  
  
  


The Empire is unraveling, and the show is  _ spectacular _ .  Every day more young officers and pilots and mechanics, disillusioned with the promises the Empire made them, find their way to Rebel bases, not even having taken the time to change from their disheveled uniforms.  They’re questioned, of course, the Alliance wouldn’t put it past the Empire for this to be some kind of trick, but it  _ isn’t _ .  It gets to the point where the Rebellion doesn’t know what to  _ do  _ with them, but they have help.

Bodhi Rook knows exactly what it’s like to be trapped working in the Empire, knows exactly what it’s like to have to learn to get used to the freedom of working in the Rebellion, knows exactly what the fresh feeling of being regarded as a  _ person  _ is like.  The mechanics are hard to crack, so are the pilots, but the officers seem to have a quicker turnaround time.  It’s a process, of course it is, but they feel a kind of fulfillment in aiding the destruction of an establishment that dehumanized them until all they were were their positions.

 

The stormtroopers that come are awash in conflict.  They cling to their helmets as though their lives depend on it, and the pilots that convinced them to leave have to drag them to the cafeteria to eat.  They don’t speak, except to each other. Whispers when no one is seen, validations to each other that  _ yes, they are people _ , small grimaces when they see the Rebellion’s recruitment posters: ‘ _ Join Now, and you can be in the fight to stop the Empire’ _ , Vader standing menacing on them (the only higher-up who’d ever even remotely understand the identity that comes with a mask) and surrounded by soldiers that look just like them.  Bodhi tries, but he can’t quite crack them. They form their own community, banding together to keep each other alive as threats more personal than a blaster shot pound at their minds.  Survival of the cannon fodder is a rebellion in and of itself.

  
  
  
  


Bail Organa doesn’t hate the smuggler, he can’t, not  _ really _ .  Not when he finds him helping his daughter manage her anger, not when he finds him helping his daughter process her grief, not when he sees him kiss his daughter’s temple and hold her while she cries in frustration.

 

That’s part of the reason why it’s particularly frustrating when the smuggler is abducted while transferring cargo.  Chewie has to deliver the news.

 

Leia doesn’t cry or shout, she grows eerily cold and commands.  Her hands shake with a level of contained fear and rage Obi-Wan has only ever seen once.  He failed last time, failed to assure them that even if things didn’t work out, that this was not the way to go.  He doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t want to fail another student (even if her lessons are less formal); he can’t fail them  _ again _ .  Her actions grow ruthless, and her advisors nearly have to force her not to let them grow careless as she makes her orders.  She isolates herself, nights spent awake making plans, and days spent with caf and a blaster in hand. Bail tries to reach her, but only Luke can.  He spends his nights up with her, steering her from reckless plans, convincing her to sleep a few hours and to eat in the morning. He offers her what little training he can with his saber, reasoning that if she can handle herself with and against it, that they’d have a better chance at getting Han back.  Obi-Wan lets her borrow his saber, and the better she becomes against Luke, the less she feels trapped by her own anger.

  
  
  


Han Solo can’t believe it (well, okay, he can, but still) when he’s wrenched from the cargo stop with a hood over his head and his hands bound.  He is more or less  _ thrown  _ into his captor’s ship.

“Watch it!” he exclaims as tries to reach for his blaster, his captor grabbing it from his holster before he can.

“Silence,” the other insists, grabbing his arm harshly and leading him to a small cell.

“You know I don’t know anything,” Han gripes.

“I don’t need Rebel secrets,” the other replies harshly.

  
  


Han Solo knows who stands in front of him before the hood is even ripped off.  The  _ breathing  _ isn’t exactly subtle.

“You know I don’t know anything,” he repeats for good measure, eyeing the Sith warily as he pulls at his restraints.  “Who even told you where I was?”

“Your friend,” Vader replies offhandedly, leering over the smuggler.

“Luke would never, he ha — ”

“So you _do_ know him.”  Vader steps nearer.  “He did not inform me.  Calrissian did.”  
“He wouldn’t!”

“Loyalty is a fleeting matter,  _ smuggler _ .”  He tilts his mask down.

“What do you want from me?” Han spits.

“I have what I need,” Vader replies simply, exiting the cell.

  
  


Lando Calrissian arrives at a Rebel base, speaking too quickly for anyone to understand him, and too insistent for anyone to stop him.  When he reveals his transgression, the princess is the first to speak.

“ _ Why _ ?” she asks simply.

“It was either give up Han or risk a full Imperial occupation of Cloud City,” he explains, feeling as though nothing truly could.  Leia stares at him for a moment, understanding in her eyes.

“Do you know where he’s being kept?” she asks.

“Not exactly, but I can help find him...it’s a trap, you know,” Lando warns, and Luke looks down to his sister.

“Traps only work if the person setting it is smarter than the person it’s intended for,” Leia replies, tone not cocky, but sure.

  
  


It is a trap.  Leia marches in, blaster and brother in hand, and is soon separated from him as an onslaught of troopers push them into separate halls.  She guns them down, but loses Luke in the process. She reaches for her comm before considering that an unexpected sound might get him caught, and pushes it back onto her belt.  She prowls about, keeping to the right as she tries to navigate through the maze of hallways, moving deeper and deeper into the Imperial base, the air almost turning colder. She walks, but her steps make no sound.  In an instant, she turns on her heel, firing at the looming monstrosity she finds in front of her. The first shot is dodged, the second blocked, but she’s been training, and the last hits his shoulder. He brings a hand to it, black glove pulling away with burnt flesh and blood. 

“Stop this at once,” he intones, saber in hand, but not yet ignited. 

“No!” she snaps, firing once more.  He extends his hand, attempting to summon the blaster to his hand, but she grips it surely.

“You’ve been training,” he comments, lowering his hand and igniting his saber.  She steadies her feet, unwilling to back down, but equally unwilling to die like this.

“Does it matter?” she asks as he approaches.  Every step forward for him is a step back for her and a shot off in his direction.  She isn’t stupid, she won’t charge forward and lose an arm or worse just to face him off.

“You’re  _ my  _ daughter.”  His voice echoes in the hall.

“No,  _ I’m not! _ ” she spits back.  Her comm chirps then, and she hears Luke’s voice.  It makes them both freeze.

“Leia, we’ve got Han, where are you?  We’re almost to the ship, we can’t leave without you, are you alright?”  It all comes out frantically. They both look up from the spot on her hip where the comm rests to each other.  A moment of silence is interrupted by his breathing, and she suddenly realizes that she doesn’t have the time for this.  He approaches, and she runs at him, firing the entire time. It’s all less in an effort to actually hit him and more in an effort to distract his eye.  Right as they’re about to meet, she drops to a knee, sliding past him. She stands, turning once to look at him, before sprinting away from him.

“ _ Luke _ ,” she calls out softly, shooting an unfortunate trooper as she passes.

“ _ Leia _ ,” he replies, and she can almost see him standing on the bridge of the  _ Falcon _ .  She follows the warm feeling in her heart, and  _ somehow  _ makes her way back to him.  He takes her hand, pulling her onto the ship as the door shuts.

“Hey, Your Worship,” Han greets weakly, laying on one of the  _ Falcon _ ’s benches.  He’s got a black eye, bruising on his cheek, and if she had to guess, a lot more she can’t immediately see.  She moves from her seat next to Luke to sit next to Han. Her plan hadn’t worked quite the way she’d intended, and she was sure that if she and Luke weren’t his children, Vader would have killed them all.  Then again, what’s to say Vader would have ever even  _ known  _ about Han without the pair of them.

Han smiles, then winces in pain, as she scoots closer to his legs, resting a hand on his shin before retracting it. “How’d you find me?” he asks.

“Your friend Lando,” Leia answers, and Han barks out a weak and pained laugh.

  
  


They’re building another Death Star.

 

Han would have laughed at the stupidity of it if the situation weren’t so serious.  They’re building another one, and this time, they don’t have a rogue architect to build them a weakness.  What they do have is  _ the  _ rogue architect that built the original weakness.  It had taken him months from his original escape to find his daughter again, but once they were reunited, he was ready to help.  He has a design, more a concept really, for a shield. One created to absorb the blasts brought against it and utilize the energy into a shot back.  It’s going to take time to perfect on a large scale, certainly, but so will the construction of the second Death Star. Galen starts small, barely big enough to cover the entirety of the average foot soldier, but it works. 

  
  


Leia Organa is hovering outside her father’s office, something she never did, even when told her that he’d be busy.  She enters after a few moments and sits across from him. A uncomfortable tension hangs in the air, and he’s about to ask her what she needed when she speaks.

“He isn’t  _ really  _ my father, is he?” she asks and just as he’s about to answer, she continues.  “I know  _ biologically _ , but I mean...I’m not  _ like him _ , am I?”

“I raised you to be different, Leia,” Bail answers gently.

“That’s not an answer,” she mutters.

“I knew him, before his turn to the Dark,” Bail begins, standing from his desk and moving closer to her.  “Your mother, too. You take after them both.” She tenses her jaw, looking to him with imploring eyes. “That’s not a bad thing, though, and just because you share a few traits with him doesn’t mean you’re destined to become him, just like how being raised by your mother and I doesn’t mean you’re destined to become either of us.  Just look at Luke. You’d be surprised how much he resembles his father, but he’s almost nothing like him.”

“How am I like him?” she asks.

“You’ve the same anger, same drive, passion...but you don’t use it like he did,” he assures her, holding his daughter to his chest.  “You’ve got nothing to worry about.”

Galen finishes a working prototype for the shield.  The machinations for it fit into a thick sleeve, the shield itself covering a roughly 1 by ⅓ meter area.  Jyn smiles proudly as she displays its uses, having Cassian fire at her, the shield absorbing each blast. Leia watches raptly for a moment, stepping closer.

“Can I see it?” she asks, Jyn replying with a nod as she slides it off her arm and hands it to her.  Leia slides it over her sleeve, turning it on and feeling the weight of it. “Luke,” she calls, her brother nearing.  “Galen, do you think this could withstand force from a lightsaber?” she asks.

“The weapon has its power source in kyber, I don’t see why it wouldn’t, but we have not tested it for that yet.”

“Then we will,” Leia decides.  “Luke, hit me,” she insists, turning towards her brother, the filter of the shield tinting him blue.

“Leia, I’m not so sure—”

“Just do it.”

Leia is aiding in distributing provisions on Aquilae when it happens.  She and Luke sense his oncoming presence moments before the alarms go off, and they’re the first to call for an evacuation.  A few stay behind as the rest load into ships, blaster on hand. As Vader’s ship lands, Luke reaches for Leia’s hand, squeezing it assuringly for a moment before releasing it.  They march forward with their soldiers, Luke with his saber drawn, and Leia with her blaster. Vader’s troopers seem too few in number, though they aren’t what the rebels fear. The rebels remain in formation until Leia steps beyond them, Luke reaching for her for a moment before retracting his hand, trying to suppress a grin as he watches his sister stand confidently before the Empire.

“You’re surrounded,  _ Vader _ ,” she shouts in a warning tone, the troopers focusing their aim at her.

“I am surrounded by nothing but fear and dead men,” he responds, saber drawn as he steps forward.  A trooper goes to pull the trigger, and they both seem to sense it at the same time. 

“Hold your fire—” Vader begins, interrupted by the sound of a blaster going off, the bolt heading right for Leia’s heart.

She holds her arm in front of her, shield absorbing the blast, her own blaster almost warm as the energy is transferred.  The air itself stills for a moment.

“Forward!” she orders, another shot hitting her shield as she marches onward.  She fires back, blaster poking out from her cover.

“Stop!” Vader orders, half the troopers halting immediately, the other half still shooting in confusion.  Luke blocks what shots come his way with his saber, trying to get back to his sister as the other rebels shoot the troopers down, shots directed at Vader blocked themselves.

“You’re surrounded,” Leia warns again, downed troopers at their feet as the rebels near him.  “Surrender,” she orders, tone sure.

“Stop this,” he insists as she nears.  The first few transport ships take off and Vader tilts his mask up to see them for a moment.  He tilts his mask to peer down at the princess as she fires at him. He blocks it, and she nears.  She fires, again and again, getting closer still. The other rebels who had been firing stop as she gets too close not to hit.

“Leia, fall back!” Luke calls, his sister nearing the man and firing still.  Another round of transport ships take off, and she has to crane her neck to look the man in the eye.  She fires, he blocks again, and as she steps forward, he crashes his saber against her shield.

The recoil from it pushes her back, causing her to stumble and fall.  The shield flickers for a moment before going back up, her blaster almost burning her hand.  She lifts it to fire, limbs feeling strange, and finds herself unable to for a moment. Vader steps closer, and Luke runs forward, hand out and saber drawn. 

“Don’t!” he shouts, coming to stand in between his father and sister.  “You  _ wouldn’t _ .”

“He  _ would _ , wouldn’t you?” Leia spits, moving to stand, only wavering slightly.  She lets her blaster rest against her hip, grimacing. Vader stares at them for a moment, Luke igniting his saber.  They fight for a few moments, Leia unable to fire with her unsteadiness, as Luke guards her. In the motions of it, Vader’s blade slices through Luke’s forearm, her brother crying out in pain.  He falls back, saber lost as Leia, even as unsteady as she is, catches her falling brother before he can hit the ground. They both fall to their knees, Leia holding Luke from falling completely.  Her shield flickers out, her blaster going cold. She stares up at him, the red glow of his saber casting a shadow over them both. “You would,  _ wouldn’t you _ ?” she asks as she holds her brother.  Then, in a sudden movement, Vader extends his hand, pushing them all back roughly with the Force.  Leia’s back hits the wall of the base, her head whipping back against it. By the time she awakes, she’s on the final transport ship, her brother sitting beside her and keeping her upright. 

  
  


She just leaving the medbay when her brother ambushes her.

“Leia, wait,” he insists, half-jogging to catch up with her.  “We need to talk about this.”

“How many did we lose?” she asks, whipping her head towards him before squeezing her eyes shut in regret of that very action.

“None,” he replies honestly.

“Then we have nothing to talk about.”

“Yes, we do, Leia.”  He approaches her, hand resting on her shoulder.  “You were reckless,  _ you aren’t a reckless person _ .”  He sighs.  “You can’t do that, you can’t  _ hate him _ .”

“Oh, I’m sure  _ I can’t _ ,” she mutters, stepping back.  “I’m sure it’s so  _ easy  _ for you to tell me that.”

“It’s not.  I struggle with it too,” he admits.

Leia snorts.  “No, you don’t, I see how you are, I know what you’re like.  You don’t  _ hate  _ people, you don’t hate  _ him _ .”

“I don’t  _ let _ myself hate him, there’s a difference,” he explains gruffly. 

“ _ How _ ?” she asks.

“...I never had a father.  I had Uncle Owen, but he was always  _ Uncle Owen _ .  I was told stories my entire life about this...great man.  I’m still hoping that some of them were true, that  _ that man _ is still in there.”

“He isn’t,” she mutters stubbornly.

“Maybe.  But hating him isn’t going to change that, Leia.  All it’s going to do is make us angry and reckless.”  He pulls Leia into a hug.

 

Concussion aside, the incident with Vader actually helps the Rebellion.  The damage inflicted upon the shield shows Galen where his design was weak, and before they move onto a larger size, Leia has Luke batter it as hard as he can with his saber until they’re sure it could withstand any damage.  The Empire’s second weapon is progressing, but so is their shield. Word that the Emperor himself is overseeing the project is both upsetting and inspiring. Soon enough, Galen finalizes his designs, and it just becomes a matter of building it.  They learn of the Death Star’s location, and future target, and immediately set off to Alderaan. The entire shield is dispersed between twenty ships, each connecting to the others once in formation. Just as Leia’s packing to travel, she sees Luke in her door.

“Why aren’t you packing?” she asks.

“I already did,” he answers, stepping closer.  She sets down her bag and hugs him, sensing a change in him as he hugs her back. 

“What is it?” she asks.

“Ask me again sometime,” he replies simply.

 

She doesn’t know he’s gone for a few hours, and she swears more than Han does when she finds out.  She tries calling out to him in the Force, but he ignores her. The ships gather in formation around Alderaan, and she forces herself to focus on the problem at hand.

  
  
  


Luke arrives on Endor with nothing but an X-Wing and his saber, he doesn’t truly need anything else.  He surrenders himself, and the commander who finds him turns him over to Vader. His saber is taken, but he knew that would happen. 

Once alone, Vader begins.  “The Emperor has been expecting you.”

“I know, Father,” Luke replies, glancing to the man.

“So  _ you  _ have accepted the truth.” 

“I’ve accepted the truth that you were once Anakin Skywalker, my father,” Luke admits.

Vader turns to face his son.  “That name no longer has any meaning for me.”

“It is the name of your true self.  You've only forgotten. I  _ know _ there is good in you. The Emperor hasn't driven it from you fully.  That is why you couldn't destroy us.” Luke utters his next words very carefully, laying his gambit on the table.  “That is why you won't bring me to your Emperor now.”

Vader glances from him to his saber.  “I see you have constructed a new lightsaber,” he deflects, igniting the emerald blade.  “Your skills are complete. Indeed, you are powerful...as the Emperor has foreseen.” There’s a moment of silence as they stare at one another.

“Come with me,” Luke implores.

“Obi-Wan once thought as you do,” Vader breathes sourly.

“He still does,” Luke assures.

“You don't know the  _ power _ of the Dark Side.  I  _ must _ obey my master.”  And though Vader has long believed this, he finds the words leave a bitter taste in his mouth.

“I will not turn...and you'll be forced to kill me,” Luke counters, tone airily confident, but shaded with his underlying fear.

“If that is your destiny,” Vader parries simply.

“Search your feelings, Father.  You can't do this. I feel the conflict within you.   _ Let go of your hate _ ,” Luke insists, nearly pleading.

But Vader steels himself, well-practiced in hardening his heart.  “...It is too late for me, son. The Emperor will show you the true nature of the Force.   _ He _ is your master now.”  He quickly signals to a waiting trooper.

The look Luke fixes him with would have stopped Vader’s breath had the apparatus allowed it.  “Then my father is truly dead.”

Without another word, they board the shuttle.

 

“Welcome, young Skywalker.  I have been expecting you,” the Emperor greets, Luke glaring at him as he enters.  “You no longer need those,” the Emperor says, motioning with his hand, the binders dropping to the floor.  “Guards, leave us,” he commands, the scarlet guards obeying. “I'm looking forward to completing your training. In time you will call me Master.” 

Luke glares. “You're gravely mistaken. You won't convert me as you did my father.” he dares, the emperor stepping down from his throne and nearing.

“Oh, no, my young Jedi.  You will find that it is  _ you _ who are mistaken...about a great many things,” the Emperor responds cryptically.

“His lightsaber,” Vader says, offering it.

“Ah, yes, a Jedi’s weapon...much like your father’s.”  He grins horribly. “By now you must know your father can never be turned from the Dark Side.  So will it be with you.”

“You're wrong,” Luke counters, careful not to betray fear.  “Soon I'll be dead...and you with me.”

“Perhaps you refer to the imminent attack of your Rebel fleet,” The Emperor says haughtily.  Luke glances up sharply to see a nauseatingly patronizing expression on that wasted face. “Yes...I assure you we are quite safe from your friends here.”

Vader turns to Luke.

“Your overconfidence is your weakness,” Luke spits.

“Your faith in your friends is yours.”  The Emperor’s face shows open disgust, almost  _ disappointment _ .

“It is pointless to resist, my son,” Vader says softly.

“Everything that has transpired has done so according to my design. Your friends there on Alderaan,” the Emperor taunts, Luke losing a bit of his mask, “are walking into a trap.  As is your Rebel fleet! It was  _ I _ who allowed the Alliance to know the location of our first target.  It is quite safe from your pitiful little band. The full force of this weapon awaits them!”

Inadvertently, Luke glances from the Emperor to his saber.  The slip does not go unnoticed.

The Emperor  _ grins _ .  “Oh...I’m afraid your shield will be nothing by the time our blast arrives.”

  
  


“Come, boy.  See for yourself.”  The Emperor sits upon the throne, Vader standing at his side as Luke peers out the transparisteel viewport, watching as the weapon charges.  “From here you will witness the final destruction of the Alliance, and the end of your insignificant Rebellion.”

Luke glances back to his saber, his mind awash in suppressed conflict, the Emperor still smiling.

“You want this, don't you?  The hate is  _ swelling  _ in you now.  Take your Jedi weapon.  Use it. I am unarmed.  _ Strike me down _ with it.   _ Give in _ to your anger. With each passing moment, you make yourself more my servant!”

“No!” Luke shouts.

“It is unavoidable.  It is your  _ destiny _ .  You, like your father, are now  _ mine _ !” the Emperor hisses.

  
  


“Your fleet will lose.  And your friends on Alderaan will not    
survive.  There is no escape, my young apprentice.  The Alliance will    
die... _ as will your friends _ ,” the Emperor further taunts, punctuating each word as the weapon continues to charge.

Luke seethes with both worry and anger, unsure if Erso’s shield could even take  _ half  _ of the weapon’s power.

“Good.  I can  _ feel  _ your anger.  I am defenseless.  Take your weapon! Strike me down with all your hatred, and your journey towards the Dark Side will be complete!”

Luke’s thoughts dwell on Leia, on how she’d rather die with her people, and how alike her corpse would look to that of their mother.  In a moment of burning rage, he calls his saber to his hand, swinging it at the Emperor, his father’s saber clashing with his before it reaches its intended target.

He fights his father like he never had before, harder then after he saw his mother, harder than the during the Alliance’s occupation of Coruscant, harder than he was willing to fight to keep him from hurting Leia.  He forces Vader back time and time again until his father loses his balance and crashes down a set of stairs. Luke stands above him, saber humming menacingly, ready to attack.

“Good!  Use your aggressive feelings, boy!  Let the hate flow through you.” The Emperor is practically purring with dark satisfaction, and Luke abruptly comes to himself again.  He steps back, extinguishing his saber, and calming himself. 

“Obi-Wan has taught you well,” Vader comments.

“I will not fight you, Father,” Luke insists quietly.

Vader slowly climbs the stairs, nearing him.  “You are unwise to lower your defenses!” Vader warns, advancing upon him.  Luke jumps, landing on the catwalk overhead.

“Your thoughts betray you, Father.  I feel the good in you...the conflict,” Luke says, voice almost tired, but hopeful still.

“There _is_ no conflict.”  
But Luke has recovered his surety.  “You couldn’t bring yourself to kill me before, and I don't believe you’ll destroy me now.”  
“You underestimate the power of the Dark Side.  If you will not fight, then you will meet your destiny.”  Vader throws his saber, the red blade cutting through the beams of the catwalk, his son tumbling to the ground in a shower of sparks as he calls his saber back.  
“Good.   _Good_!” the Emperor laughs.  Vader stalks in the dark as he tries to find Luke, the boy’s steps soft.

“You cannot hide forever, Luke,” Vader warns.  
“I will not fight you,” Luke declares.  
“Give yourself to the Dark Side.  It is the only way you can save your   
friends. ...Yes, your thoughts betray you.  Your feelings for them are strong. Especially for...” Vader pauses, sensing a change in Luke’s thoughts.  “Leia, your thoughts dwell on her. If _you_ will not turn to the Dark Side, then perhaps _she_ will.”

The image haunts him: Leia, with an oppressive cloud of darkness over her, drenched in black and entrapped both by the dark and her own suppressive mechanical suit.  He sees a funeral for who she once was, and her former self is buried beside their mother.

“Never!” Luke shouts, reigniting his saber as the image of his pained sister clouds his mind.  He screams in fear and anger and rushes towards Vader, forcing the Sith back until he’s on his knees.  The Sith Lord goes to block another blow, but Luke cuts Vader’s hand off in the process, the saber and gloved apparatus clanging uselessly to the ground until falling into the bottomless shaft below.  Luke holds his saber to Vader’s throat, determined to kill the image of what his sister could become. 

“Good!  Your hate has made you powerful.  Now, fulfill your destiny and take your father's place at my side!” the Emperor urges gleefully.  Luke looks from his father to his own mechanized hand, equally cloaked in black. He calms his mind, quelling his impulses, stepping back, and finally tossing his saber away.

“ _ Never _ .  I'll never turn to the Dark Side.  You've failed, Your Highness.” Luke stands tall, voice suffused with peace and power.  “I am a Jedi, like my father before me.”

The Emperor darkens in his anger.  “So be it... _ Jedi _ .”  The Emperor descends from his throne, nearing the boy.  “If you will not be turned, you will be  _ destroyed _ ,” he hisses, bolts of lighting emerging from his fingertips.  Luke tries to block them, but ultimately fails, knees buckling as he’s electrocuted.  His father, injured still, rises and stands beside his master. The weapon fires, shot heading straight for Alderaan.

 

Far across the stars, Leia feels a deep burning right under her skin. “ _ Luke! _ ” she calls out, shield already surrounding the planet.

“ _ Leia, _ ” he responds in a soft, pained voice.  The shot hits Alderaan’s shield, the sky turning a blinding green as it struggles to absorb it all.   _ Leia, you have to do it, you have to fire _ , he continues, no words coming from his mouth this time.  Leia further feels her brother’s agony, struggling to move as she marches forward to make the order, though whether the cause of that be the burning or her grief, she couldn’t say.

“ _ Fire! _ ” she commands.

 

“Your feeble skills are no match for the power of the Dark Side.  You have paid the price for your lack of vision!” the Emperor sneers mercilessly as he continues to torture the boy.

Luke reaches up to his father.  “Father,  _ please _ .  Help me...” Luke groans in agony.

Vader looks from his master to his son, gaze continually switching.

“And now, young Skywalker...you will  _ die _ ,” the emperor pronounces, the power of his torture increasing manifold.  Luke writhes in pain, screaming and moaning.

Having made his decision, Vader grabs the Emperor from behind, moving to throw him over the edge of the pit.  Just a moment later, the shot from Alderaan crashes into the weapon, causing the whole thing to lurch violently.  Their aim is off, so it hits just the side, but it’s enough to cause Vader to fall to his knees, the emperor unceremoniously toppling over the edge and into the abyss below.  The Death Star groans as its infrastructure beings to collapse in on itself. Luke moans in pain.

_ Leia _ , he calls softly, looking up to where Vader’s hand twitches.

_ Luke! _ she calls back in amazement.   _ You’re alive, where are you? _

_ Still here… _ he replies, trying to stand and failing.

_ We’ll send a ship _ _ — _ _ we’ll send Han, just get to safety _ , she insists rapidly.

_ Don’t...it’s too dangerous, _ Luke explains, watching as his father stands.   _ Leia, I love you _ , he confesses as he tries to stand again, and fails.  He watches as Vader lifts Luke’s saber, looking back to him.

_ Say that when you come home, don’t say it now! _ Leia nearly shouts, shaking as she feels Han steady her.

_ Tell Han I said it too, all right?  _ he asks as he watches Vader clip the saber to his belt.  The Death Star shakes and creaks again, plexiglass cracking.  His father nears, kneeling beside his son and staring at him for a moment.  Luke struggles to stand, failing again. This time, though, the larger man places two arms, one whole and the other not, under him and lifts.  His movements are jolty as he carries his son to the elevator, machinations of his suit glitching every so often, but remaining stable enough to move. 

Officers are rushing about as the weapon continues to fall apart.  Vader carries his son into his own transport ship unnoticed, placing him in the co-pilot’s chair, though he doesn’t expect him to do much.  The Death Star begins to collapse in on itself as they pull away, Luke barely able to see the giant hole in it before it caves in. Luke takes a deep breath, looking over to his father as he pilots seamlessly with one hand.  He doesn’t mean to, but after a few minutes, Luke falls asleep. 

The next time he awakens, he’s in a bed in the med bay, Leia holding his hand, and Han asleep in a chair with dark circles under his eyes.  He sits up, looking around and feeling confused when he doesn’t see his father. Leia looks over to him, sighing as though she had been holding her breath, and elbows Han.

“Wha — oh, hey, the kid’s awake,” he mutters groggily, looking extraordinarily relieved.

“We weren’t sure you would wake up,” Leia confessed.

“Yeah...sorry about that, I didn’t mean to fall asleep. Where’s — ”

Leia cuts him off with her expression.  “Being fitted for a new hand...I insisted,” she answers in a short tone.  “What happened?” she asks.

“It’s a long story,” he begins.

  
  


Chirrut  Îmwe is no Jedi, but he knows when someone is about to make a bad decision, can almost sense it.  Vader, the man who is debated between being a war criminal and a war hero, is trying to sneak away in the dead of the night when those on shift are too tired to notice a looming, black-cloaked Sith Lord.  Chirrut is not. Even without improved hearing, anyone paying attention could hear the giant nearly stomp across the hanger.

“You are not thinking wisely, my friend,” he announces, staff anchored in the ground as he leans against it, the Sith turning on his heel.  “Come, sit,” Chirrut insists, nearly laughing at the absurdity of his own proposal, there being no seats in the area. “I know the Force, but I do not know you.  Come, let us change that.”

“Who are you?” the looming figure demands.

“A friend, were you not listening?” he replies, chuckling at the thought of Baze’s response to that.  The man nears, footsteps heavy and glitching still. Chirrut sits on the ground, patting the area in front of him lightly.  After a moment of silence,  _ Darth Vader _ feels as though he must obey, and does.

“You’re a Guardian…” Vader realizes.

“Of more things than one,” Chirrut replies, laying his staff across his lap.  “Now, tell me why you would leave your children so soon?” he insists, the other man nearly flinching.

“How do you know?” Vader asks.

“I know the  _ Force _ ,” Chirrut answers simply.

“Luke...Leia...they’re safe.  The Empire will fall. So must I,” Vader mutters.

“If we all had to fall with that of which we were once a part, I’d have fallen with Jedha,” Chirrut advises.  “And  _ you _ would have fallen with the Jedi.”

  
  


Leia Organa wants to hate  _ Darth Vader _ , but the moment she sees him exit his ship carrying  _ her  _ brother, she can’t, and neither can Bail.  The black-clad man brushes past her father, going straight to her.

“He requires medical attention,” Vader states, and Leia can feel it, too.  She glances over Luke, eye stopping at Vader’s injured arm.

“So do you,” she mutters, glancing up to him before looking back to her father.  “We need to get them to the med bay,” she says softly once before raising her voice.  “ _ Medics _ !” she calls, a few of them rushing over before stopping in their tracks upon spotting the mechanical wraith.  Leia gives them a look of steady reassurance. “Did I  _ stutter _ ?  Get them to the medbay!” she commands.

  
  
  
  


It’s _ years _ until Obi-Wan reveals the truth of Padmé’s death to them all, and though  _ Vader  _ (he clings to that name because  _ Anakin  _ feels like a lie he isn’t worthy of) is both saddened and relieved, Luke is  _ livid _ . 

“Tell me it was the truth from  _ a certain point of view  _ and I swear to the stars — ”

“It was a necessary lie,” Obi-Wan defends tiredly.

“Was it?” Luke demands.

“It was the truth your father believed, so it was the truth we told you,” he explains, and Luke storms away.

  
  


Han asks Leia to marry him, and she foolishly lets him convince her not to elope to do it.  It would be scandalous, certainly, but he didn’t want to hide his bond to the woman he loved more than anything else in the galaxy.  He asks Bail for advice instead of permission (and doesn’t even think about the idea of doing the same with Vader), and oddly enough the man just hugs him.  The war had taken a lot out of all of them, and they were all recovering from their collective wounds, but Bail had grown to have a deep appreciation for the smuggler.

He never did get paid for transporting Luke and Obi-Wan, though.

  
  


Ben Naberrie Amidala Skywalker Organa Solo is born a mere six months after their wedding, and no one dares to speak a word of the potential scandal, especially since the news of the twins’ lineage broke (the entire galaxy, oddly enough, wasn’t so scared of Vader, but of insulting the Amidala name).  Han falls in love the moment he sees his son, feeling more content than he ever had in his life as he holds his child for the first time. Leia smiles tiredly at him as she rests against the stack of pillows at her back. Eventually, she makes Han give Ben back and tells him to go shower and change. He leaves her begrudgingly, Bail assuring him that she would be fine.  He holds his grandson close to his chest for a few minutes before turning to his daughter.

“What should I tell our people of our prince?” he asks, and Leia laughs.

“All this time and I had nearly forgotten his title...his name is Ben,” she replies, arms out as her father gives her her child back.  “He’s not ready to see the world yet, and I don’t think they’re ready to see him either,” Leia determines. “Go, tell Alderaan, and send Mom in when you’re done,” she insists, holding her dark-haired son to her breast.  “Wonder where he got that from,” she mutters as Luke enters.

 

The Jedi are foolish.

Luke Skywalker, the Jedi who’s supposed to bring back the old Order, instantly grows  _ attached  _ to his nephew as he begins to cry loudly.

“Hey,  _ hey _ , it’s all right,” Luke soothes, bending down to look at the boy in wonder.

“You can’t hold him yet, I just had to pry him away from my father,” Leia teases, rocking the crying boy.  Luke straightens up, looking to Leia seriously.

“Speaking of that ... Father wants to visit,” he reveals after clearing his throat.  Leia stares at him for a moment before sighing.

“Fine, but only for a minute.  If Ben’s already crying just at you, I don’t want to see what he does when he sees  _ him _ ,” Leia says, and Luke nods and leaves before returning with Vader. 

 

Ben calms down instantly, reaching out for the looming machine of a man.  Vader reaches back for a moment before retracting his hand.

“This child is strong with the — ”

“We know,” the twins reply in unison.

“He’s beautiful,” Vader mutters, respirator sputtering for a full two minutes as it waits for him to calm himself enough to breathe steadily.  Luke helps their father to a chair, keeping him upright as he respirator restarts. Leia watches the scene, holding her son close to her chest and sighing. 

  
  


Darth Vader is being given a new suit.  One made by the royal Alderaanian physicians, no less.  One that Leia Organa insisted be made on the grounds that “ _ I’m not allowing my  _ **_father_ ** _ to terrify my son by his presence alone.” _  Vader doesn’t have the heart to tell her that without the suit, he still wouldn’t look  _ right _ .  His son nearly bursts into tears when he looks into his eyes for the first time, and his daughter gasps at the evidence of the accumulation of his injuries, blaster scar from when she shot him showing through the white shirt he wears.  His limbs don’t hurt as much anymore, his lungs breathe on their own, and his back isn’t in constant pain. He thinks he might even be able to eat actual food now. He wants to hug his daughter, but knows that such a thing would be unwelcome.  He still feels more machine than man, but he no longer feels trapped by it.

  
  


The  _ Falcon  _ breaks down completely one day while Han is working, and he is only able to secure a ride back home with the promise of Alderaanian money (the irony is not lost on him). The  _ Falcon  _ is towed by the  _ Ark Angel _ , and when he finally arrives, all thoughts of payment seems to be lost as Doctor Aphra comes upon Darth Vader in the hanger.  The scarred man seems taken aback by her approach, more  _ surprised _ , really, but he warms up to her rather quickly.

  
  


The First Order rises, of course it does, there are some things that can’t be changed regardless of time, but it rises weaker, its leader unable to entice his most wanted prize.

Ben takes after his grandfathers in all the best and worst ways possible.  He adores them both, but always goes to the one for advice. Doctor Aphra hangs around every so often, whenever she’s in between errands for Vader.  She calls him “kiddo” and ruffles his hair and reminds him of his dad when he misses him. Luke doesn’t start a new Jedi Order, searching the galaxy and consulting Chirrut for advice on what to do with the Force-sensitive children instead.  He comes to a more balanced teaching, one his father advises on, knowing full well from first-hand experience what a stifling order can do to a person. Ben is a prince, with duties, so it isn’t as though he could be a proper  _ Jedi  _ in the first place.  Luke helps, though Vader is still the only one he feels comfortable talking to about  _ the voice _ .  His grandfather tells him stories of his grandmother, of corruption and conflict, of surrendering to powers beyond either of them.  Ben’s mother doesn’t exactly  _ approve  _ of their talks, but she tries her best not to acknowledge that they happen in the first place.  Sometimes, though, when Ben sneaks away from his duties, he goes to the man he’s named for. The grizzled old Jedi sees so much of Anakin in him, but Leia and Han too.  The boy’s heart is bigger than his ears, and he awaits with almost entirely open arms for someone to share it with. Bail worries for the boy, but not of darkness. So many influences in his life, so much passion.  Leia herself was hard enough to teach politics to, always willing to fight as she was, but Ben has to balance so much more. 

 

Ben meets Poe Dameron when he’s still transporting cargo, and instantly forms a light-hearted rivalry with the pilot (best in the galaxy, if you believe him). 

 

Poe’s captured by the First Order after he makes Commander, and is aided in his escape by a stormtrooper later to be named Finn.  They crash into the Jakku desert, only to be fished out by a scavenger named Rey. They steal a ship and make it to Alderaan, and Ben is relieved (it’s not as fun insisting he’s the  _ best pilot in the galaxy  _ when his competition is dead).

Finn tells them all he can, but more valuable than his tactical information is his counseling of the former troopers.  When the Empire fell, so many were displaced and separated, so many unable to find work or meaning in their lives. Finn knows all too well what it’s like to be just a mask, and it’s not until he meets  _ defected pilot and war hero  _ Bodhi Rook that he realizes that that’s more useful than any intel could be.  Survival of the cannon fodder is a rebellion, but the  _ thriving  _ of it is a  _ renaissance _ .

Rey is strong with the Force, and Ben can tell in an instant.  His mother speaks as he finds himself without words, offering the girl nearly everything, but she insists that she has to get back to Jakku, that she’s waiting for her parents.

“What if we find them?” Ben blurts out awkwardly.  “We have the resources to, we could,” he offers, his mother looking to him strangely before nodding to Rey in agreement.  “I’m...Ben, by the way. Ben Solo.” He offers a hand, and the scavenger hesitates.

“The  _ prince _ ?” she asks incredulously.

He nods awkwardly, but she takes his hand.

“I’m Rey.”

He smiles at the name. 

“We should probably get you something to eat,” he reasons, and she agrees eagerly, his mother smiling knowingly.

  
  


Rose Tico is awarded a medal after stopping the engine of Leia Organa’s transport ship from erupting into flames, and she meets  _ Finn _ at the ceremony.  He introduces himself, and she has to force herself not shake in excitement.

“I’m Rose,” she begins.

“I know, I saw the ceremony.  Thanks for what you did,” he replies, smiling warmly to her.  “Your job’s  _ so cool _ , I know almost nothing about ships,” he admits.

“But — _ you _ !” Rose blurts, mouth running away in the face of compliments from her personal hero.  “You escaped the First Order, you’ve been helping all those lost stormtroopers,” she gawks, Finn nearly blushing until a man approaches.

“Oh, Rose, this is General Rook,” Finn explains as the greying general looks to her with momentary confusion.

“Have we met?” Bodhi asks.

“No, we haven’t,” Rose replies surely, offering a hand.  “I’m Rose.”

“Bodhi,” he smiles, shaking her hand firmly.

  
  
  


Fin.


End file.
